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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393053">The Folks who Live on the Hill</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomwriter05/pseuds/Phantomwriter05'>Phantomwriter05</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Detective Stories [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Downton Abbey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>1930's/1940's Movie Serial Action, Accidental Incest, Country Manor Mystery, Dark Avenger of the Night, Detective Story, Forbidden Love, Fu Manchu - Freeform, Great Depression, Great Detective Fiction, Inspired by Gosford Park, Inspired by Paul Dini's Detective Comics Run, Mentions of other franchises, Pulp Occult and Supernatural, The Last Tycoon (2016), Tormented Lovers, Toxic Mother - Son Relationship, Whodunnit, noir, pulp mystery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:09:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>68,802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393053</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomwriter05/pseuds/Phantomwriter05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In Early 1936, Lady Grantham intends to hold an all female High Society House Party, inviting many prominent mothers and their teenage daughters to stay at Downton Abbey.  Called away on extended business in London, Lord Grantham, with the greatest reluctance, goes to Crawley House to engage the services of his young heir, newly returned home after long exile from Britain, to take mastery of Downton while he's away and provide security. However, what was sold to the young Adventurer &amp; Consulting Detective as a leisure holiday filled with the company of beautiful young women turns deadly when a maid turns up dead in Lady Mary's room. Now, after ten years since being cast out of his ancestral home, George Crawley with the help of Thomas Barrow and Richard Ellis, his two most trusted men, must wade through a guest list filled with the cream of British High Society and their many grudges and schemes to find a lurking assassin bent on revenge against the women of Downton Abbey for an old scandal perpetrated by the oldest of sins.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cora Crawley/Robert Crawley, George Crawley &amp; Marigold Crawley, Sybbie Branson &amp; George Crawley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Detective Stories [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683829</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue - Presto! DOUBLE CROSS: Part I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> <strong>Prologue -</strong></span>
</p><p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>Presto! DOUBLE CROSS:</strong>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <em>Part I</em>
</p><p>It was a strange business.</p><p>The news circus on both sides of the Atlantic seemed teeming with the fascination over actress Freya Ingrid. The delectable strawberry blonde bombshell that had a three-picture deal with "Brady-American". She had been shooting in London. It was a mystery picture, a thriller, about a woman who saw something she shouldn't. A lounge singer with a voice of an angel- the best the studio could buy in ADR -that fell hardline and sinker for a mysterious man with a past. The budget was modest. But the girl's 'gams' were anything but. Something to beef up studio sales between award season and the new Christmas picture that was sure to clean up the corners for Brady-American's fourth quarter profit margin. The local color in London was amused at the Hollywood invasion come again. Not since Lady Mary Crawley's failed third wedding to the still missing movie star Roger Sinclair, had the worlds of High Society London and the glamour of Hollywood rubbed so close. Indeed, the London Season of 1936 was used by many forward-thinking studios to recruit and smooth out new Tax breaks for perhaps using Britannia as a location for shooting movies. And "Too Sorry for Too Late" was supposed to be a trial run. It seemed nothing could go wrong …</p><p>Till Freya Ingrid went missing four days ago.</p><p>There had been press conferences from the Commissioner's Office. On the London streets were teams, squads, and companies of 'Bobbies' out in force, knocking on doors, and doing their best tough guy routines to the local citizenry. Even the Lord Mayor did his duty, for once, in personally seeing that the voluptuous sex symbol of the 'talkies' was <em>"Ably in hand … or in our grasp, no, no, ah … we'll find her, lickety-tit! Split! Lickety-Split! Oh, damn your eyes you bloody vultures!" </em>By this point the entire country was following the story rabidly. Men from Hollywood were taking up two or three rooms at Scotland Yard, their assistants and secretaries running in and out of unused Interrogation rooms, phones ringing off the hook from overseas.</p><p>Meanwhile, the good Inspectors of "The Yard" and MI5 butted heads over who had the jurisdiction. MI5 accused the London Police of being at fault for not cleaning up the city more. The disastrous "Battle of Cable Street" between the Cadets of "The British Union of Fascists" and the local Irish and Jewish citizenry of the East End being fresh on everyone's minds. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard accused MI5 of wanting to take over the investigation only in order to cover their own hide of this being an international incident. Then, the news media was at war with one another to get the best scoop.</p><p>Freya being a Norse name, the BUF claimed in one publication that it was a political kidnapping by radical Marxists. The woman coming from an Irish background made many sure that it was something to do with the government trying to block the appearance of Irish mobility through American society, at least that was what the Liverpool papers wrote. "The Guardian" claimed that it was American Mob scheming, hearing that Freya Ingrid was once Gilda O'Hara, the one-time daughter of the late New York Crime Boss Tommy O'Hara of the Irish Mafia.</p><p>This prompted the "Court Circular's" Richard Carlisle to write a scathing column insinuating that foreign visitor's 'petty and grubby squabbles' should not be brought to British Shores. In response, "The Los Angeles Times" wrote their own counter column, bringing to mind the last time that the Glitz of Hollywood was lured to England by Parliamentary promises. There, they were ambushed by a full on Civil War between George "The Comet" Crawley and Lady Mary Crawley, leading to battles between the Comet's rebels and Lady Mary's hired mercenaries on the fields of the County Grantham to the very stone streets of the Village of Downton. And in the end, top stars and starlets, high powered executives, and even studio heads themselves, who had come to see Roger Sinclair- third highest box office star in the world- marry Lady Mary Crawley were instead chased out of Downton Abbey. Some of the biggest stars in the world still felt the humiliation and shame of fleeing for their lives through the halls of the countryside manor as George Crawley fired double barreled shotguns of rock salt and pepper at them. Now, once more, lured back to England, their 'ample' commodity was missing. Perhaps, according to American papers, the whole 'British Project' should be scrapped entirely.</p><p>After all, what did they fight a goddamn revolution for in the first place?</p><p>"It seems such a shame, really. You know, my dolly, if they had just given you the part, like Mr. Stahr had asked Mr. Brady too, I feel, truly, that none of this would've happened."</p><p>"Yes, it was quite frustrating. You so earned it, my darling."</p><p>"Oh, it's alright, Aunt Rosamund, Granny. They were quite right in thinking it would be too soon. Being that I'm part Irish and we look so much alike, Mr. Brady felt that people might think I was replacing Minna Davis so near her death and that the audience would be so unkind when I didn't deserve it. Plus, there's already a famous star in this family. I don't think Donk's heart could take two."</p><p>"Nonsense, I would be delighted if the world saw just a glimmer of what I see when I look upon both my beautiful and talented granddaughters."</p><p>"My, my, Papa, such lofty praise and in front of foreign company, no less. One might rethink the stoic and stiff stereotypes of us English Gentry."</p><p>"The only thing I risk, Mary, is pointing out an obvious fact."</p><p>"Obvious … but, I dare say, one needed to be said as often as possible …"</p><p>"Especially by the critics."</p><p>There was a rise of amused and charmed chuckles that echoed through the long dining room of Downton Abbey. The crystal décor atop the white tablecloth reflected the golden light of lamps and flickering candles that threw tall shadows upon the walls of the opulent crimson room. There the closing courses of dinner, a strawberry custard pudding, was being served diligently. It was a full family affair for the Crawley's. They had just come from London. The Season, at its height, was sidelined by the news of the kidnapping. Thus, their time in the capital, at least for now, was changed over back to the countryside. This prompted several invites to those that lingered in the orbit of the popular House of Grantham to come and stay. For the guests there was notoriety and intrigue to the Crawley family. They were both famed and notorious in all the poshest circles of British Society.</p><p>It was said, and proven absolutely true, that the House of Grantham produced some of the most beautiful women in the British Imperium. The likes of Lady Mary Crawley, sleek, elegant, and fine like silk. The stunning Lady Rose Aldridge, Countess of Sinderby, youthful, intergenic as a girl in the noontide of her adolescence, and a body figure of pure pleasure. There was also Lady Edith Pelham, Marchioness of Hexham, who was not a traditional beauty, but her gorgeous figure and unrivaled glamor made her even more attractive than most. But the real draw to Downton Abbey and the House of Grantham was "The Twin Roses" as they were called. The two heiresses, Ms. Sybil Afton Branson and her cousin Ms. Marigold Crawley. They were without a doubt the most beautiful girls in the entirety of the Imperium, if not the world.</p><p>Ms. Sybil, Sybbie to those who loved her, was near perfect. Her satiny skin was as pale as moonlight, making her sorrowful cerulean eyes near luminous and gleaming like a cat in the dark. Her sleek frame was accented by long black tresses which were luxurious and glossy. Thus, it was, with pale skin, plump ruby lips, and raven curls, Sybbie seemed a princess who escaped a young girl's idyllic fairy tale book. Indeed, there was something different about the young beauty that was pervasive to all who looked upon her. She seemed out of time, archaic, or perhaps even ancient. Ever there was a wilting sadness to her piercing blue eyes that bore some memory of a tragedy felt so deeply that it rippled across tens of thousands of years. Across many souls and ingrained in her very blood, this divine spark had found its way into a solitary angelic youth and bequiffed to her a deep memory of many things both of great love and terrible heartbreak. Yet, there was something about her sorrow, the ever-distant look of melancholy in her eyes that only increased her beauty, as it did the love felt for her. Fore, the obscenely rich heiress of "Branson &amp; Talbot Motors" seemed as much a judge of other's character by their own reactions to her.</p><p>Ms. Sybbie Branson, as one of the most beautiful and richest young women in the Imperium, evoked strong reactions of Love, both romantically as well as paternally. It was said that some parents forgot their own daughters just to overly comfort and luxuriate young Ms. Branson while she was in their company. While others, many of a darker tint of personality or nature, were overcome with an unquenchable lust for the girl. Whether it was her beauty or her fortune, there were plenty of men and women of many ambitions and ages that wished to take the girl and have her as their own, to dominate and subjugate her. The sorrow and vulnerability in her beauty making old animal instincts run afoul in dark and perverse contentment in deviant fantasies in which the young teenage princess was the subject of all. Thus, knowing of these things only recently, it became the job of her parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles to protect her …</p><p>Fore there was a time in which their beloved Sybbie was enslaved to such evil lusts of others who paid both fortune, honor, and soul to a mama's fiancé to have her in their bed and at the mercy of their perversions.</p><p>Yet, if there was a sorrow and a darkness to Ms. Branson, then there was only light in Ms. Marigold Crawley. Though not as rich as her cousin- sister in every way but name- Ms. Marigold seemed just as out of place. Yet, it wasn't that the young girl was out of time or seemed more fitting in a different age of man all together. It was simply that the girl, born of sorrow and secrets, seemed from a completely different world. Of Ms. Sybil one might say that she was the peak of human female beauty. Yet, it would seem that Ms. Marigold could not be judged by such standards, fore she alone stood apart, unique. She was an elven creature, statuesque, graceful, and fair beyond all countenance of man. She was as pale as her mother and cousin, rounding out a complexion that was model for an Englishwoman of standing reared in a country of much cloud and little sunlight. Yet, in the lack of sunlight, one could always find it stored in her perfect locks of shining golden hair. Whether by sun, moon, or stars, light seemed to almost reflect off the cascade of golden silk when caught in its net. It, like her deep emerald eyes, sparkled and gleamed alight as if the beams of a soul so pure could not be contained, shone from every point and end of her body. And such a light was never so shown in all its mastering glory and ethereal wonder than when she danced.</p><p>The famed star attraction of the London Metropolitan and Royal Stage was a fairy, hypnotizing beyond all reason and discipline as she moved to the stringed orchestra. At a tender age, too young many might say, she had become world famous. Her abilities of movement were artful and precise. Her intuition and interpretation by instinct and ear had broken centuries of choreography and rewrote the script on what was common knowledge of the very classics of the West. There were large productions, concerts, operas, which had to be served. But there was only one reason that tickets to the London Met were impossible to get during the Season. There was only one reason that the queue in the cancellation line stretched near a block. And there was only one reason that people traveled thousands of miles to attend the London Season. And it was to see world famous Prima Ballerina Marigold Crawley, illegitimate daughter of the Marchioness of Hexham, dance.</p><p>She had taken the world by storm, yet, she knew nothing of it. Fore, she lost herself in the pleasure and refuge of what she loved. In her artistry the girl saw no face in the audience but for the one burned into her broken heart. The face that inspired her, tormented her, and made her who she was. Of his name she could never speak, not now, not ever. But he was a part of her very soul, his memory, his undying love could be found in her graceful glides that enraptured entire generations. And yet, the fame, the riches, and the standing ovations meant nothing when the music stopped. She went to the poshest of restaurants and fancy tea shops, attended dinner parties with her beloved mama or with her sister Sybbie, and always a sycophantic applause met her as she entered a room. She was fawned over and pursued by the very top tiers of handsome young men and society hostesses. Her friendship sought by all and worn like a badge of the most exclusive privilege. But it felt so empty, fore she danced for the sorrow and love of only one man. The only man in the world whose love was a part of her very soul and yet she could never again reciprocate …</p><p>Now that they knew the truth of her maternity.</p><p>These two girls, Sybbie and Marigold, alone made the positioning and jockeying for a seat at the Grantham table worth it all. They were works of art in their own right. But taken together, with the quality of food and the maintained opulence of the surroundings, it would stand to reason that Grantham House in London and Downton Abbey in Yorkshire should always be besieged by the cream of society. Yet, there were some that did not approach the Crawley family, who lingered away, glancing at a distance. They invited Lord and Lady Grantham as well as their girls to their own homes for dinner and tea, of course. After all, the Crawleys were at the center of High Society in those days. But they dare not step foot on Grantham land or property, fore, the beauty and glamor of their house and young women so fine was ever guarded by a looming gargoyle that lingered in the shadows.</p><p>Those whose intentions were not noble, whose lusts were uncontrollable, found themselves suddenly superstitious upon invitation to the Grantham holdings. Many a frustrated dowager, a former American heiress of Boston or New York, would stamp her foot at a flustered son or grandson who told the butler to cancel their attendance to a tea at Downton Abbey or a dinner party of Lady Grantham's in her London abode. Always the staff reported of hearing an old woman shouting up the stairs. "<em>You'd have better luck inviting the King to play cricket than running into '</em><em><strong>him'</strong></em><em>!" </em>Yet, still, with a bead of sweat, they claimed to their granny or mama that they, simply, 'didn't like tonight'. And when the cancellation was reported from Mrs. Hughes to Lady Grantham, everyone in the drawing room or the Downton Abbey library knew why.</p><p>He was rarely seen, if ever, at Lord and Lady Grantham's table. They say he often dismissed invitations and that Lady Cora had stopped trying. But still his presence sat heavily on many functions, sometimes put there by the likes of Tom Branson and Lady Edith in order to inject a little thrill of unwelcome anxiety into those they did not trust or like. The mere insinuation that <em>he</em> was near ruined some of the guest's nights, even causing some to leave early. Their longing minds remembering their evil pleasures with Sybbie in their cruel bed haunted the beauty across the table in their knowing glances and smug smirks at her. Yet, a simple utterance of one name by Marigold or Mrs. Lucy Branson would change their mood. An inquiry to Lady Grantham of if this mysterious figure might stop over tonight and receive this or that which they had forgotten to give him. Then, the hauntings of smug grins would be exercised into dismay, afear that Sybbie had told this shadowy avenger the names of those who had bought and violated her. That their name might have been one that had come up … then God help them if Ms. Branson's beloved sees them there, breathing the very air of the girl he loved above all things which they had despoiled with their degeneracy.</p><p>No one would be able to save them then.</p><p>They had heard rumors for months of other poor souls that had run afoul of him. The stories in the newspapers or the whispered gossip around the dinner party table. Of the origins of this fearful reaction had come the night that <em>he</em> had ambushed Lord Charles Blake in his own penthouse.</p><p>Lord Blake's neighbors heard the sounds of gunshots and then a loud smashing of glass. And it was when they went out onto their balconies to see what had happened, they saw Lord Blake cut up and bleeding. All around him was the shattered remains of a plate glass sliding door of his outside overlook that he had been thrown through. From out of the darkness came a young man, tall, broad, and shadowed, stepping in languid menace onto the balcony. Quickly the smaller man tried to reach for his smoking Walther PPK, but he let out a gasped gag when the avenger's booted foot stepped on the outstretched man's hand, making the Ulster Lord's knuckles crackle and pop like dried twigs. Then, stooping and snatching, he dragged the dapper gentleman to the balconies edge and made the man scream. There, to the horror of all who witnessed it, the youth dangled the twisting and desperate Lord Blake over the railing of his own city view with one hand. The frightening avenger's voice was growled and ghoulish as he threatened the senior member of the Foreign Office with a 'long drop and sudden stop' if he didn't tell him what he needed to know.</p><p>Where had they taken 'the girl'?</p><p>Afterward Charles Blake, the onetime co-conspirator and introducer of Roger Sinclair to the Grantham family became a less frequent guest of his old friend Lady Mary Crawley at Downton Abbey. They said that Lord Blake had been bought and paid for by the Nazi Party in Germany to act as their lobby and press agent in the House of Lords. But for many British Aristocrats that did not make the man a villain. Even the new King Emperor Edward VIII claimed the man should be praised. That the Imperium would do well with stronger ties with Chancellor Hitler. But even so, some found it exceedingly beastly that a gentleman would be accosted in his own residence, thrown through his own sliding glass door, and held over a long chasm to the London streets below. A victim of intimidation and thuggery <em>by one of their own</em>. But these gentlemanly outrages did not excuse the grave sin committed by Charles Blake that night.</p><p>Fore, it was, in fear and fey despair, Lord Blake told the young vigilante <em>everything</em>.</p><p>The rest was gossip, whispered in drawing rooms, told over dining room cigars once the ladies went through. There had been and would always be a certain 'Victorian' tradition and pedigree passed down through the ages. After a century it seemed that these sorts of things were accepted as normal, you must understand. Young men at Eton or Harrow, in their final years at Oxford and Cambridge, they all had a certain duty to their organizations and friends. It was Hellfire Clubs and the like. A secret handshake, a password, so you know you're amongst friends in the hallowed halls of the House of Lords or in Whitehall. The safety of knowing that there was someone looking after you. And for that price there were certain "expectations" of loyalty that each must go through.</p><p>It, of course, was silly, juvenile even. But the test was not to make sense of the ritual, but to show devotion, to show belief, as you did to your brothers and their credo. Of these brotherhoods, each had their own initiations which ranged from the strange: the ritual slaughter of an animal, to the perverse: nude young men in Greek masks wrestling in blood and wine as the old men watched. But in the afterward, at your anointment, you were praised with great praise and brought into the fold. And in that exclusivity came certain privileges that was afforded.</p><p>There was seniority in the handful of rituals that they observed thrice a year. It was to test loyalty, as well as to reap the rewards of being the masters of their own universes. One such of these rituals was held on the blooming of spring on the ancient Greek holiday dedicated to Bacchus. Each member of the Hellfire Club was to provide one daughter, niece, or tribute to be brought to the old abandoned Halifax Estate in Dorset. The rules had been clear. No one may show their face. The men, no matter the age, would go nude … and the girls … had to be <em>girls</em>. No younger or older than … well, no gentlemen ever spoke such things even in private. But in the evening, the abandoned halls were rife with laughter and giggling as drugged young girls in see through white linin dresses and flower crowns danced, sang, and fled playfully from 'the sons of Bacchus' in their decadent masks looking to catch a lovely nubile nymph.</p><p>It was a tradition that went back a hundred years at the height of the British Aristocracy under the Georgian Kings. Many famous Lords partook, and many young ladies of admiration and standing were haunted by the half memories after awakening in a soaking tub, pained by what they lost and yet could not remember how they lost it. It was said, till her dying day, Lady Violet Crawley, Countess of Grantham for forty years, still felt bile rise when she saw old men in masks and when people spoke of her uncle. Yet, later in life, leaving harsher memories to ignorance, folding into society, many of these same Aristocratic women would be the first to defend such a practice. Some going so far as to deem it a rite of passage, others active in recruiting the loveliest of young things into these evil decadences and counting them lucky to be a part of it.</p><p>One such of these, pursued vigorously, and paid for handsomely to be the greatest prize of all, had been Sybbie Branson. For a furthered agenda, Roger Sinclair had sold his fiancé's adopted daughter to these recruiters in the previous year. She would be the highest water mark, the most celebrated of tributes, exalted as a goddess come to the mortal plain. And when the night was over, both 'step-papa' and 'Princess' lied of a "riding accident" to her family as to why she couldn't walk properly and flinched at being touched by those she loved.</p><p>Some would say later that in their most triumphal moment, they had signed their death warrant to everlasting torment, when they bought Sybbie Branson for their foul debaucheries.</p><p>Fore, it was, as the scenes played as they always had for over a century, there came the sound of a loud and vengeful motor engine echoing through the abandoned halls. Then, just as the girl's stopped running, the men lifting up their masks … the old doors broke open and a motorcycle screeched to a halt on the overgrown checkered tile floor. There, a tall shadow, frightening to drugged young girls and drunk aristocrats alike, dismounted and stood to full height. He was imposing, demon like in the glint of his cerulean eyes in the twilight, haunted and fierce. They said that Lord … well, a Lord who was the head of this … brotherhood, came forward to chastise and berate this 'dark fellow' who had trampled on their sacred ceremony and heritage. It seemed ludicrous, a naked lusty old man, chasing young girls, to show outrage at such barging in. But his voice was caught in a hicc-up when the avenger brought down a hammering fist atop the old lord's head, driving him face first into the dusty floor like a railroad spike. Then, from what was told, the rest was a red blur of horrid violence unlike anything that the British Peerage had been subjected to in times of peace.</p><p>When it was over, the local sheriff and a few deputized denizens found the old Halifax Estate aflame, lost forever, never to be salvaged. There they found a gaggle of crying and frightened young girls in odd costumes, huddled together, heavily dosed with narcotics. But the most frightening display remained at the Estate's eldest tree atop its hill. It was there that they found a dozen and more naked men, unmasked. Some as old as grandfathers and others young and virile, all men in places of incredible privilege in society and government. Yet, they were all hung upside down by their ankles and beaten viciously to an inch of their lives. It was estimated that though their bodies would mend, their minds would never recover from what happened that night. Moreover, on their exposed pot and taut abdomens were written their full name and title in their own blood to identify them in the many pictures taken of them in such a state.</p><p>Among the girls there was only one missing. A young orphan from India, her father a Lord's son, a Colonel. Her mother had been a simple belly dancer at the garrison. Upon their death, her begrudged grandmother had sold the pretty copper skinned embarrassment to the family to her stepson for his ritual. But it had been the girl's aunt who paid a young man double to rescue her niece and bring her back to safety. That morning the young half-Indian girl was returned to the arms of her beloved baroness aunt as was the money that was paid to her savior. The young hero took his toll in the blood he shed of those who had ritualistically violated the girl he loved all of his life while he had been away these many long years.</p><p>Yet, it was said by several private Harley Street physicians that each member of the Hellfire Club was branded that night with a rune of an ancient language lost to knowledge. Some believe that it was "The Mark of Cain", an Adamic symbol seared to the everlasting soul that denied the wearer entrance to the very Gates of Heaven. Whither it was true or not, one fact remained above all else. Each time they looked in the mirror, the dotted and curving lines of their ancient mutilation would always catch their eye. Then, they would remember the broken bones, split skulls, and horror found on that terrible night. Of course, there was no reports to the police. The sheriff and the local tenant volunteers were paid handsomely by the best of London solicitors for their silence. But ever afterward many in London Society looked upon the House of Grantham with trepidation and superstition.</p><p>Never again did they observe their rituals or make secret handshakes in high places, afraid of the brand upon their chests, and of the dark figure looming in shadowy places that gave it to them. Then, with hatred and fear, would they forever grudge Mr. Matthew Reginald Crawley and Lady Mary Josephine Crawley. A noble man who passed on the sense of ever being a benevolent- and at times violent- defender of the downtrodden. And of an elegant great lady, whose selfish sorrow in the death of a baby daughter and cruelty in her grieving birthed a never-ending rage in one she bore that damned all Gentlemen and the evil entitlement to which they guarded their vile secrets.</p><p>Thus, it was the wedding of great love, great tragedy, and a mother's terrible mistake one Christmas Eve that conspired into the world a dark crusader whose phantasm haunted the many nightmares of monsters and monstrous men alike.</p><p>"It's a hell of a horror story …"</p><p>Everyone stopped their conversations over their sweetened convection and glanced down the table. Across from Lady Rosamund Painswick and seated between Lady Grantham and her daughter, the Marchioness of Hexham, was Chris Everman. He was an average sized man of average height and average build. Taken all together, despite his charms, there was something rather average about him. With his dark cropped hair and Roman nose, he looked rather like what most would say someone from New York City would. With the accent to prove it. As Lady Edith saw from her vantage point, Mr. Everman looked rather lost in his own world, weighed by some beastly burden that he did not say. She was sympathetic, so she listened and chimed into a conversation had by her sister Mary and their brother-in-law Tom. There was something rather jolly being planned special for tomorrow, or rather, was in the planning for the three of them, Rose, and the girls when Mr. Everman spoke up … to no one in particular.</p><p>"Come again?"</p><p>Lord Grantham was courteous to one of their foreign guests, but they could all tell that he didn't quite appreciate the curse in his Staten Island drawl. The broad faced man, younger than Cora and his daughters but older than their granddaughter's by at least a decade, looked up in surprise. There was something sweaty and nervous about the sudden glance of the entire table. It took him a moment to realize that he had made some sort of outburst, lost in the fear that he might have said something he shouldn't. But after a moment, stumbling, taking a pudding wine glass, he cleared his throat.</p><p>"Just the whole, you know, the whole thing … I'm sorry." He shrugged with a grunt of apology.</p><p>"Oh, don't be …" Lady Grantham came in with a legendary hostess's ability to sympathize with anything, ranging from using the wrong fork to a full-scale Viking invasion from the sea. "You've been through quite the ordeal. I can't imagine how worried you must be for poor Ms. Ingrid." She had a girlish quality to her sympathy that was always rather pouting.</p><p>Lady Cora's tact seemed old-fashioned nowadays, one might have even taken her as insincere. Not when every hostess in London and York rather flirted with a heavier sexuality than the excessive compassion of their mamas from the Edwardian Age. Yet, it seemed comforting to her daughters, teasingly wholesome and loving to her granddaughters … and eye-rolling and cringeworthy to her only boy, to whom she used an unguarded familiarity and sterner language with in private. But Chris Everman was a special case, more special than most.</p><p>The man that sat at the Grantham table was actress, model, and bombshell Freya Ingrid's manager and fiancé. He shared the title of co-executive producer on two entrees to her modest, but growing, filmography. Ms. Ingrid signed the deal with Pat Brady and Monroe Stahr with the assurance of "Quality Control" for her projects. She relied heavily on Chris for these things after the absolute flop of her last picture in which she played a Boston Nun who ran an orphanage. Every review in the trades either remarked how they wished they grew up in an orphanage run by a nun with those 'gams', or wondered who Ms. Ingrid was fooling, trying this late in the game for something serious. It seemed that everyone knew that when it came to Freya Ingrid it was her bosoms that put bumkins in seats. Still, after the death of Brady-American superstar Minna Davis, everyone in Hollywood was looking to replace her. "Too Sorry for Too Late" was supposed to be Freya and Chris's big shot. She had the sex symbol status and all she needed was the right role. Mr. Brady had been so sure that 'Femme Fatal' seemed what everyone would be looking for in absence of the sainted Irish maven of the silver screen.</p><p>But that was not why he was at Lord and Lady Grantham's table.</p><p>Chris Everman may be all of these things in Hollywood now. But what interested Lady Grantham most about the man was where he first started out. Not the rich son of a Tinsel Town executive or the graduate of the polished walls and lecture halls of the American Ivy League. It was in a small two room apartment in Hell's Kitchen where he rode the subway most days to Fifth Avenue. There, putting on his chauffeur hat, he would report for duty to "San Sochi" the Levinson family's New York Mansion. For many years, he accompanied Lady Cora's late brother Harold on many incursions into the bowels of the City for business and pleasure. Several times he had even driven for Lord and Lady Grantham, waited at the Docks for Lady Mary and Lady Edith in the years after the War. So it was, at Lord and Lady Trenwith's ball, when Lord Grantham recognized the man from his days in Washington D.C. during his testimony at the "Tea Pot Dome" incident, he was pulled deep into the Crawley's orbit.</p><p>It was purely mercenary in ways of nostalgia for Cora Crawley. She had long made peace with the idea of Downton Abbey and Grantham House being her home for the rest of her life. She had her soul mate, her children, her granddaughters, and now her grandson, newly returned home from long exile. All of which filled Cora with a deep and quiet satisfaction that she could not begin to describe. But still there was always a part of her that would call New Orleans, Newport, and New York … America, home. But now, to the handsome older woman those places seemed a fading memory of another life. The Levinson Fortune, built on Cincinnati Tin and a New Orleans commercial cotton plantation, was no more.</p><p>Their holdings and interests were lost overnight in the "Crash of '29". San Sochi was burned to the Ground in 1932 by Pinkertons after her boy for rescuing their darling Rose from herself. Amantha Pointe, her mother's ancestral Gothic Mansion in New Orleans was derelict and damaged beyond repair when her boy gave pitch battle to the Ku Klux Klan and their evil cultist leader in 1933. And now she learned that Levinson Manor in Newport, built from the concept blueprints from "The World of Tomorrow" pavilion of the 1883 World's Fair in Chicago, was completely destroyed months ago. Once more, it had been her boy, and once more, he was being hunted for another's sins. This time it had been by a former <em>Ottoman Princess</em> with a score to settle against Mary for the death of her son in the grand Lady's bed many long years ago. But those things she could live with. They were places of many beloved memories, but in the end, they were only places, made of wood, glass, and stone. All that mattered to Cora was that her grandson survived. That her boy did everything in his power to return home to her. But what hurt the most was the loss of all the rest of what had always made those lost places home. She brought Chris Everman to her London House and Downton Abbey to reminisce of her mother and brother.</p><p>Both now being dead ...</p><p>She did not know, and might never know, what happened to them. Fore George did not speak of it to her, or to anyone. It was nearing a year now since Harold had passed. All she knew of it was that he had shot himself with George's own gun in New Orleans when the youth wasn't paying attention. But as too why he did so, her boy only shook his head grievously and said quietly <em>"Darkness caught him, couldn't shake it." </em>But Cora was not fully ignorant as George thought. She still heard rumors of the ritualistic butchering of Madeleine Allsopp by the same evil Cultist Priest that George fought in 1933. And some people say that George and Harold had come too late to rescue her in the crypts of the ancient and haunted St. Louis Graveyards … "The Gates to the City of the Dead".</p><p>Of Martha Levinson's death her daughter knew nothing, not even where she was buried. All that was known was that Martha had gone to Amantha Pointe after the Crash, telling George to meet her at San Sochi and to wait till she got back from New Orleans with something of value that would save the Levinson and Crawley fortunes. But after a year of waiting, living on his own, alone, in the New York Mansion, Martha Levinson never returned from New Orleans … and never will. To Cora's dying day, George swore he knew nothing of his Great-Grandmother's fate, only that she was dead. But Cora knew her boy all his life and loved him much longer than even before that. She knew, deep down, that George was lying to her. But she did not press it, fore if it was true, then there was a reason for it. Perhaps it was a death of cruelty and suffering insurmountable, and it seemed most likely. But whatever it was, George Crawley loved his Granny too much to ever tell her what evil fate of doom fell upon her mother in New Orleans those seven long years past. And somehow, for just this once, her imagination was enough, and that the real truth might have been more than she could bear.</p><p>It had been a true wrench in Cora Crawley's soul to think of all that had befallen her mother and brother in her absence. A helpless sense of sorrow and guilt for not being there, not bearing a burden, of not being able to try to help the best way she could. She and Robert had never been on the best terms with her mother. Martha Levinson had always considered her daughter to be brainless, born more beautiful than the finest jewels, and yet so much air in such a lovely head. All of her life, Martha had thought Cora mentally challenged. And at her wedding, Martha's blessing had been that 'at least my dummy found another one to make a matching set'. The old Southern Belle had never let up, never.</p><p>Mary was too vapid and stupid, Edith was plain and timid, and Sybil would've been perfect … had the girl's parents "Twiddle-Dumb and Twiddle Dumber" not lost the goddamn instructions on how to put her together right. Yet, still, Cora would've endured the final years of complaining and moaning about dying in 'Merry old England' if the mythic Martha Levinson had the mercy of doing it in a warm bed, surrounded by her family. The same had gone for Harold. Cora would've done anything to get her brother back here, with Ms. Allsopp on his arm. He might have done wonders for Tom and Mary's motor business, make Henry wish he hadn't sold out to Mary during their divorce after …</p><p>after Caroline died.</p><p>Sometimes Lady Grantham thought she might go crazy with the not knowing. Then, there were times that she was grateful that her baby boy did not tell her of it. Ignorance was not bliss, but also didn't weigh on you at two in the morning, awoken to a crushing guilt and tears that no amount of a husband's love could mend. But the real heartbreak of the matter was not only that she wasn't there, but that in her stead had been her boy. What she didn't know killed her. But what tormented her like the fires of Hell and damnation was that George did, because, her boy, their only boy, had been there. He alone survived to witness the horror and tragedy of the fall of the Levinson Family to this terrible Depression.</p><p>George Crawley was there the day the Stock Market crashed. He had been there when the Levinson factory was burned down in Cincinnati. He waited for his Great Grandmother at an empty San Sochi for an entire year, near starving and alone in a lawless city on the brink of chaos. He had gone to New Orleans years later and seen what his old enemy had done to his Grandmamma, even if he told her daughter he didn't know. And he had watched Harold be consumed by darkness after witnessing the ritualistic murder of the woman he loved by that same ancient adversary that defined a young adventurer's childhood.</p><p>It destroyed her, remembering so vivid and clear the very day that her brother had killed himself.</p><p>It had been memorable, because, across the Atlantic, the Grantham family had been on Holiday. They had all gone down to the beach resorts for the summer. Robert had thought it too beastly hot, but Sybbie, Marigold, Viki, and even her mama Rose was keen. And never let it be said that there was anything in Robert that could deny being so ably wrapped around his granddaughters' little fingers. Thus, with Edith and Marigold meeting them there, Lord and Lady Grantham, Mary, Tom, Sybbie, and Lucy traveled to the summer resort. There, inviting nobody else, especially not Mary's beastly Movie Star, they cut loose.</p><p>So many memories of great fun and laughter was made on that holiday.</p><p>There were pictures of Donk being led hand in hand by his granddaughters to brave the tide that crashed against their thighs. There had been Mary lounging in her stylish sunglasses, fashionable hat, and sleek and shiny red provocative swimsuit that drew attention wherever they went. Tom Branson and his father-in-law in short sleeve button down shirts, straw hats, and sunblock on their noses, both looking not amused at Lucy for snapping their picture while looking so ridiculous. A relaxed Edith having a Sandcastle being built around her by Marigold and Rose as she napped. Then, the rest of the roll was dedicated to their smiling and laughing girls that played in the surf, rode each other's back, or helped Sybbie carry an ambushed and outraged Mary to the deep end of the ocean while Tom laughingly tried to stop them. Yet, no one had seen Mary smile more or laugh so with abandon as she ran Sybbie down, tackling her into the surf to be slathered by muddy sand and pelted with kisses as they were dogpiled by her nieces who got no less.</p><p>It was truly a glorious day, filled with peaceful sleep, good food, laughter, and family. She remembered so vividly watching Mary and Edith snuggled with the girls as they slept in their mama's rooms. Yet, Cora could remember standing on the balcony of their beach house staring out at the moon over the ocean, the stars twinkling on the calm waters like a mirror's reflection. When Robert found her, he wrapped her up in his arms as they shared her view of perfection in a night. It was then that Cora voiced that there was nothing better, nothing in the world, than what had happened this day.</p><p>However, thousands of miles away, the sun set slowly over the violet and orange skies of Southern Louisiana. The evening whispered through the tall live oak trees with trunks that twisted and gnarled, their leaves rustled and shuttered in warm winds that cut through the humidity. There, in a little woodland glen, led to by a path swallowed by undergrowth and ivy was a small forgotten cemetery guarded by a rotting picket fence. The fragrance of Jasmine and Lavender filled the air. Inside the ruined gate was the headstone of twin girls born before Harold Levinson, lost to the fever that had run rampant during Reconstruction right after the American Civil War. The other headstone was for a baby boy that shared a birthday with a twelve-year-old Cora. He had suffered and fought for two weeks before his lungs had given out. In devastation, the boy's brokenhearted big sister spent weeks buying and planting scented flowers around the babies graves so they knew they were welcome back home if they chose to return to visit. Now, half a century later, they grew wild and untamed through the glen. Their smell was stifling to the solitary figure who struck the little graveyard's sod with his spade in growing darkness.</p><p>The young man worked quietly and solemnly. The new grave was larger than the smaller ones, yet, whoever had built the little memorial for their lost children had foresight or despair enough to expand the space in case there were more to add. It seemed providential to a young boy years before when he planted what was left of the blackened and charred bones of his great-grandmother at the feet of her lost children.</p><p>At times the boy turned back for a second to glance at the kneeling figure of a stocky balding man who stared at a stiff and still figure of a petite woman wrapped tightly in a fine linin and lace tablecloth. Harold Levinson looked worn with great age that came artificially and overnight. He was much thinner than he used to be. His suit and trousers were mended, his suspenders weatherworn, and his white business button down was yellowed and threadbare. The old man's chest hair was exposed in the muggy heat of the evening, matted in perspiration. But his blue eyes, stinging from sweat, looked nowhere but at the covered face of the slain maiden that lay in a bed of lavender and jasmine that he had picked for her from his baby sister's now unruly garden. He never looked up at his young partner in this expedition to reclaim the Levinson family heirlooms, his nephew, who was digging Madeleine Allsopps grave. The young man then went back to a labor he was becoming too familiar with in these last eight years. Yet, in a few stabs the work would be finished.</p><p>Then, there was a shot.</p><p>With a trained snap of defensive posturing, like a cat landing on its feet, the youth whirled back. In the distance Harold lay slumped over the stiff young British debutante. With shovel in hand, running and hopping through the thick glade of his Granny's flowers, the boy rushed under the twilight shade of the live oak. Sliding to a halt on well-worn boots taken off a corrupt Federales Captain, he looked upon the scene. Uncovered was Madeleine's fair face, pale and lifeless. Her cover had been caught by the gusting warmth of the coming New Orleans night and it had been blown over.</p><p>Somehow the sight of it, of her still face, the warmth and life stolen from its beauty, had caught Harold at the wrong moment. It was then that a torrent of terror in the dark memories of the things he saw in those dark Witching Hours while in the New Orlean's crypts took ahold of him. And it was in that moment, remembering his beloved girl's final cries of suffering and the horror of her blood upon <em>the mask of the </em><em><strong>Necromancer</strong></em>that Harold Levinson was taken by a deep existential despair. His nephew saw his great-uncle's solution in the form of Matthew Crawley's Webley MK IV service revolver taken from his son's Mexican weapon's belt hanging from an oak limb. The barrel of the sleek retrofitted weapon smoked as did the exit wound through the older man's temple. The youth squeezed his eyes shut painfully and turned away.</p><p>"<em>You damned old fool!"</em></p><p>The boy snarled with clenched teeth of a sorrowful rage that crushed him. The boy didn't have the best relationship with the man. He had been missing for years, since the Depression had started. And somehow in all those years he had never once checked to see if his mother or grandnephew was alright till he needed the famed adventurer and fighter for a matter of familial archaeology. Yet, when they were together, his much-begrudged Uncle Harold had his moments … even if he had to remind him ten times a day that Sybil was his aunt not his sister and that Mary was his mother, not his aunt. But even then, the man was still family, the last of the Levenson's. They might not have been the best people in the world, but when he was chased from England for saving Sybbie and Marigold, Martha and Harold Levinson did not hesitate in taking him in. They were rather intrigued and amused at the idea of housing an Outlaw to the British Royal Family and thumbing their nose at the Prince of Wales and the British Aristocracy by harboring him openly. It was more than he could've said for his own family when Prince Edward posted the wanted posters at Westminster.</p><p>Yet, these memories were but just a collection of so many more that ended with him digging a grave alone in some fairy spot he surveyed as a fair enough place to rest a body of a friend or family member. The sickness of loss and grief in bitter exile for so long ate at the young outlaw. It was with disgust that he turned and flung his shovel, tired of the taint of death that it gave his hands. Then, all the smiles and tears of many faces, friends, family, and foes fell upon him, crushing him to his knees like a weary Atlas who had taken a false step under such a burdensome weight. There, alone, once more, the terrible years of wear and punishment from this terrible Depression overcame him. And in his moment of despair he let out a long and strangled cry of rage into the empty darkness of coming night. His chest heaved when he held himself up by his hands and knees at the side of Madeleine and Harold's lifeless corpses.</p><p>But no tears came, there had been too many over the years, and he found them all gone now.</p><p>Then, somehow, the youth found the strength to get back to his feet again, for just one more bout. Slowly, he trudged through the field of lavender that covered the glade like a young girl's tears. Picking up the shovel the boy gave a long-haunted look to the collection of corpses that lay under the live oak. Then, in resign defeat, the young man lit a lantern to hang on the wing of an angel statue crypt belonging to two great-aunts that none of their siblings ever met. With the sound of metal stabbing the earth, the outlaw started again at the freshly dug grave to widen it to accommodate two. As the stars shown above the rustling screen of oak tree canopies, the boy thought that there was nothing worst, nothing in the world, then what had happened that day.</p><p>And as midnight turned the hand in Southern Louisiana, the Grantham family awoke on the shores of England in high spirits to a breakfast feast. Yet, for George Crawley he had put the last hammering stake into the makeshift cross that marked where Madeleine and Harold were lain, right next to his mother, accompany with all her children save one. Somewhere in that hour while Lady Grantham offered a cheery toast of Orange Juice to her family, George gathered his things and stared out at the graves. He would take stock of what Madeleine and Harold had that he could sell to survive the long journey to complete their quest alone. It had been many years since that boy had made the perilous trek from New England to New Orleans, and he had barely survived it then. Now, pursued by the cruelest of the fallen Royal House of Pamuk's hunters in one of the hardest years of the Great Depression. He would have to make a journey by foot through hundreds of miles across river, through field, and over mountains to get to the ruins of Levinson Manor in Rhode Island.</p><p>But on that quiet early morning, slinging his jangling pack of fine leather across his back, a young outlaw, the last of the company, heart heavy and full of pain, turned and headed back the way he came.</p><p>"Did you ever know George?"</p><p>The name shook both Mr. Everman and Lady Grantham from two different tracks of mind. Everyone paused a moment while an awkward silence was cast dimly over Downton's table. It would seem an innocent question if the very utterance of the House of Grantham's heir was not loaded with connotations synonymous with a looming threat and often weaponized against unwanted guests. Yet, for others, his reputation as an adventurer and explorer proceeded him. And Lady Edith being his chief chronicler, it was not unheard of for the more curious sort, undeterred by the darker reputations, to inquire after a tale or two of adventure and mystery. But when all their eyes turned toward Sybbie, who innocently sipped the edges of her pudding with a spoon, they pondered what brought the question up …</p><p>Certainly Mr. Everman was caught off guard by this providential or mind reading inquiry.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Ms. Branson?"</p><p>"George … did you know him when you worked for Uncle Harold and Grandmamma?" The girl pushed with a laconic shrug of a silky bare porcelain shoulder as she languidly scooped her custard. For a moment the man and the teenage girl shared a glance, and he was lost in her deep sorrowful eyes. Lord Grantham frowned looking back and forth between the raven beauty and the movie producer, sensing something more. The two trying to work the other out, as if they both knew something that no one else did at the table.</p><p>Something to do with George, or of his business of late.</p><p>"Umm …" The Hollywood man untangled himself from the girl's piercing gaze that seemed to know much more of <em>recent events</em> than he was comfortable with. "Oh …" He cleared his throat. "George, ah, <em>Georgie</em>?" He caught himself, determining to play it all up. "Oh, sure, yeah, of course I knew the little guy." He shrugged. But then, he turned back to Lord Grantham. "Meaning no offense, of course." He held his hands up with a charming smirk.</p><p>"Of course, not …" Lady Grantham chimed in. "He was quite small for his age before he …" Something melancholy came over Cora, stopping short of what she was going to say.</p><p>"Before he left?" Lucy helped with a sympathetic smirk.</p><p>"Yes …" Cora returned it roughly. "Before he <em>left</em>." She finished quietly.</p><p>"Yeah, well, not so much anymore if I hear right." Chris nodded as he scooped up the strawberry and custard in a large portion on his spoon. "I hear he's pretty grown-up lately." He chewed, doing everything in his power to avoid the beautiful Ms. Sybil who had an arrogant smirk in private.</p><p>"Taller than most." There was something veiled in her elegant and musical accent.</p><p>Sensing the tension, Lord Grantham spoke up. "Well, I don't know rightly where he gets that from." There was a self-deprecating lilt to Robert that played to a few charmed chuckles.</p><p>"His mama … perhaps." Rosamund replied without thinking. But she couldn't stop herself from finishing the sentence. Suddenly, and with discomfort, all eyes could not help but turn to Lady Mary Crawley who swirled her wine. A look of contempt came over a cold face at the comparison.</p><p>"It's possible."</p><p>She replied coldly, sipping bitterly, as if they were speaking of someone else entirely. Some other woman, some lost mother, that Lady Mary was only vaguely aware of. But her contempt drained away in private and just the hint of a longing sorrow was shown under her cold and beautiful exterior. But when she caught Tom's eye next to her, and he saw her private emotion with sympathy, she glared. It was not his business how she internalized a decade of a mother's torment.</p><p>"Ah …" Mr. Everman swallowed waving off his own notion. "He wasn't that big when I knew him. But the kid had crazy squabbles I tell ya." He chuckled … one might have thought nervously.</p><p>"Do you think so, Mr. Everman?" Sybbie added. Her lady like bite made more people turn to frown at her … except the man himself.</p><p>"<em>What is it?"</em></p><p>Marigold leaned over to whisper to her best friend, noticing the man was refusing to look at her under pain of death. But Sybbie only gripped her sister's silk covered thigh under the table in wordless expression that explanations would come later. The ballerina turned to her Uncle Tom and shrugged at the inquiry on his face at the strangely antagonistic turn of his little girl.</p><p>One might not have ever known that it had been Sybbie who <em>insisted</em> that the man stay at Downton.</p><p>Sensing the mood turning, the man cleared his throat, gave a half-hearted chuckle, then sat up to tell a story. "I remember one time he went with old Mrs. Levinson to some mom and pop store, German, I think. But when they got there, they were on their lunch break, see, but uh, that wasn't gonna cut it with your Ma, right? So, you know, I offered to drive'em somewhere else till they open again. But you know Mrs. Levenson." He turned to Cora.</p><p>"Oh, yes, I know … it had to be that store, at that moment, and no other, right?" Cora smirked nostalgically.</p><p>"They'd only screw it up elsewhere …"</p><p>Both the former Chauffeur and the woman's only surviving daughter said together with knowing grins.</p><p>"Anyway, so she says she's gonna go around back, right? To rouse their lazy … uh, keisters, as it were. But the little guy … I mean George - no offense – says to her that she's nuts, right. So, he lays out on the hood of the car, slouches his hat over his eyes, and puts his hands behind his head. Then, he tells her that if she's gonna go walking down alleys on her own, she better have left him something good in the will. Because, he ain't calling no hospital if she gets mugged." He continued.</p><p>"Sounds about right …" Tom said with a smirk.</p><p>"Right? Anyway, so we wait around about five minutes, seven minutes, no one comes out of the shop. So, the kid rouses himself and tells me he's gonna go check it out. And I says "Yo'Georgie ya'wanna get some Johnnies over here" … you know policemen? And the kid says to me "are you crazy? How is that ignorant old bird gonna learn anything?" Heh, I tell ya, that kid of yours is a piece of work." The man said to Mary.</p><p>"Yes, I'm sure." She deflected as if she knew not why that would interest her.</p><p>"Well what happened?" Rosamund pushed.</p><p>"Oh, Oh … I remember this!" Lady Rose blurted out, but then mastered herself. "But I'll let you finish Mr. Everman. But I must tell you it's all very exciting." She promised.</p><p>"Well, like Lady Sinderby said …"</p><p>"The store was getting robbed! Sorry …"</p><p>"Oh my gosh …" Cora said in sudden shock at Rose's unrestrained admission. "It wasn't!" She looked to Robert who was as disturbed as his wife was. They had never heard this story of both their Grandson and Cora's mother being in danger. Surely, they knew the outcome of it. But it seemed at that moment, in the newness of it, that it might as well have been happening right in front of them.</p><p>"It was. See, when your Ma walked round, she found the old kraut, I mean German, and his wife tied up. A couple of Gumbas were shifting through the inventory, beaten on grandpa about the combination to the safe. But instead of Mrs. Levinson walking away …"</p><p>"She confronted them, like a pig-headed idiot?"</p><p>"You know your, Ma."</p><p>"To my everlasting torment, yes."</p><p>"So, she gives the wops the third degree like she's dressing down bellhops in Newport. They don't like that one bit, so, they pull out their pig-stickers, right? They threaten to carver up like a turkey dinner. And the old lady just scoffs at them saying that they ain't got an oven big enough to fit her a- … uh, derriere. But these boys don't like no lip, especially from super fancy old ladies who can buy and sell them five times over. So, they start circling your Ma, with the pig stickers, ready to pounce on her. Then … BAM!" The man slapped the table making the lamps and candelabras jangle.</p><p>"The kid comes out of nowhere, leaps right off the roof of the brownstone and gravel surfs the lead gumba into the pavement. Then, he turns and just starts fighting them. It was … <em>insane, </em>INSANE<em>!</em> I ain't never seen anyone move the way Georgie out there did. He fought like one of them Chinamen in those 'chopsaki' films outta Hong Kong, you know? He was blocking, redirecting, kicking. It was just crazy to watch, you know. I mean it was enough to unnerve them gumbas to leave the Krauts, the loot, and Mrs. Levinson and high tail it outta there! It was the damnedest thing I've ever seen, no mistake." Mr. Everman mimicked the boy in memories with chopping hands as he finished the animated story with a shake of his head in nostalgic admiration.</p><p>"Yes … we're, uh, fully aware of his skill in combat." Robert cleared his throat while he sipped his wine, trying not to comment on the vulgarity in speaking with ethnic slurs and telling tales of violence at a society dinner table in the presence of Gentlewomen.</p><p>Something flickered in Edith's eyes. "Some of us, more than others …" She drew out with a cold glance at her older sister. Once more Lady Mary Crawley, who still remained the hostage of the young Lord of Downton who had recently overthrew her, said nothing. In response the sleek pale woman in form fitted red satin only glared haughtily at her sister with a lift of her chin in superiority.</p><p>Tom sighed. "There's no need for this …" He whispered between his sisters whose moods swung so often these days. One moment they seemed the closest of friends. The next, at the mere mention of the children, and especially George, they were at each other's throats. He turned to Lucy for help with a pleading tilt of his head in exasperation at two women that were too old to be acting in such away, fighting over the children and their affections like they were dolls.</p><p>"I wonder where he learned all of that." Mrs. Branson spoke up on behalf of the beleaguered mediator.</p><p>She, alone at the table, with perhaps maybe Lady Rosamund for company, knew very little of George Crawley. When she first met Tom, the boy was not present, out of country some said. In fact, it was during that magical first Royal visit that she learned that he didn't even live at Downton. Instead he stayed with his Grandmother Isobel, Lady Merton, at Crawley House when he wasn't at sea as an apprentice to the likes of Captain Allan Quartermain and Ms. Mina Murray, or … if rumors were to be believed, that dreaded Sikh Science Pirate whispered to make his tracks <em>twenty thousands of leagues under the sea</em>.</p><p>There had been an incident that past Christmas Eve before the Royal visit involving the death of her cousin Mary and her husband Henry's daughter Caroline. No one talked about it, but most of the family blamed George for it. But by the time they came to their senses, realizing how preposterous it was and repented, the damage had already been done. The boy had been ostracized by the family, especially by his own mother. So it was, in the years that Lucy Smith courted Tom, she never saw the boy. And what she knew of him where the things reported at tea by Sybbie and Marigold, who spent much of their days at Crawley House with him when he wasn't away. And by the time she had married Tom, Downton had been scourged, the Abbey had been sacked, and the young outlaw was in the wind for the next eight years, leaving behind a bitterly regretful family to mourn his long exile.</p><p>Even now, pardoned by the old King on his death bed from pressure by Princess Mary and the Lords, Lucy still didn't know much about her step-nephew. Tom had kept her well clear of the "Grantham Civil War" in which George Crawley and his men were victorious. And afterward she had met him but once or twice, shaking his hand when he congratulated Tom and herself on a wedding that he missed by seven years. Other than that, she was kept far from Lord Grantham and her husband's dealings with the young Lord and <em>Consulting Detective</em> in matters of the Estate and its debt, to which he was Downton's creditor. There was also the matter of Lady Mary's ransom as his captive, which was linked to the Estate's debts which she must pay with interest, in full, before her own son would return social freedom to her. It was a continuingly humiliating mark on Lady Mary in high society. But then, Lucy Branson thought it rather just, in private. Considering it was her cousin Mary's near decade of tyrannical rule and strangely oblique selfishness that plunged the county in open rebellion and nearly ruined their family.</p><p>It seemed only fair then that Lady Mary be forced to pay her own debts in reparation for what she had done in her horrid grieving over the terribly tragic loss of her baby daughter.</p><p>"I believe there was a Martial Arts master that George befriended closely in Chinatown, now that I think of it." Lord Sinderby provided to Lucy's question. "He trained with him for a number of years." He continued. "Though blast me if I can remember his name." He chuckled.</p><p>Rose met his gaze with a cute little scrunch of her pristine face, as if joining her mind to his in shared thought.</p><p>"That was George for you." The producer shook his head. "One big serious scholar, that kid. Spent most of his time reading old books, ancient scrolls, and devouring Mr. Levison's library. Old Mrs. Levinson was afraid she took on a geek instead of a roughriding outlaw. That is till she saw him fight those goons. Then, she wouldn't let up about him boxing amateur. He'd always tell her that his skills were for 'knowledge and defense, not to buy you a new tacky hat.' Heh, the kid had style. Still the old lady persisted, calling George's 'code of honor' sanctimonious horse- uh … leavings. Ha! I swear by the end of it the kid got so fed up with Mrs. Levinson riding him all the time that he told her, straight up, that when he decides to Box, the old lady would be the very first to know." Then, Chris made a punching motion to his eye to demonstrate George's intention toward Martha.</p><p>"He didn't …" Cora said with playful shock.</p><p>"Oh, yeah, I tell'ya I've never seen anyone go back at Old Mrs. Levenson the way the kid used too before the Crash. They were like two miserable tinder boxes that sated each other with endless bickering just enough so that they wouldn't blow up and kill all those fancy Dutch Harpies on Fifth Avenue." The producer laughed.</p><p>"I could believe it." Edith smiled fondly of her nephew and grandmother, two people she had been closest too in her family.</p><p>"I … I think it was something with an "I"." Rose started making headway with Atticus. "I, um, I …" She squinted her eye shut while sucking on her spoon thoughtfully. "How maddening! I can see his face clearly. Such a Lovely old man, very kind, always smelled of fresh laundry." She sighed.</p><p>"I believe it was because he owned a laundry shop." Atticus politely and slowly corrected the lovely woman with a smile of amusement.</p><p>"Golly …" Rose put her hand up to her mouth. "It all makes sense now, doesn't it?" She giggled.</p><p>Atticus turned lovingly to a wife of whom he had been separated from for some five years now. Yet, he and the children still visited every weekend at Downton, and both still refused to divorce. Rose and Atticus's love was palpable across a table. But the terrible trauma that Rose had suffered that led her to flee New York with her family still lingered, dividing them, though the chasm was closing little by little as the year's past. She recovered slowly in her family's home, surrounded by those who loved her, supporting her. Every week Lady Grantham accompanied her adopted daughter to therapy in York. Afterward, at their usual teashop, Cora always assured Rose that one day she would return to be the wife and mother she should be for her waiting family.</p><p>"Sensei!" Rose suddenly clapped. "I believe his name was Sensei!" She conferred with her husband.</p><p>"No, I don't believe so. I think that was what George called him." He corrected.</p><p>"That wasn't his name?"</p><p>"No, that is what students and apprentices call their masters in that sort of education." Edith chimed in.</p><p>"Well, I'm flummoxed then." Rose admitted defeat.</p><p>"I was about to say Zatara …" Atticus commiserated. "But, of course, that isn't right either." He tapped his spoon thoughtfully.</p><p>"No, darling, that was the Magician he worked for and studied under." His wife corrected. "I do remember that, because, George always did tricks for Viki and Hugh before we put the babies to bed." She reminded him.</p><p>"Of course, …" He smirked fondly with the ringing wonder and laughter of his children echoing from his memories to the warmth of his heart.</p><p>"Wait …" Tom interrupted. "You don't mean Giovani Zatara? The famous Illusionist?" He stopped in his tracks. "The one we took the girls to see last year?" He pushed.</p><p>"Naturally." Rose replied nonchalantly. "How do you think we got such good seats, darling?" She teased with a faux boastfully haughty look at Tom, playing at tossing her golden hair.</p><p>"George was a Magician's assistant?" Mary asked in a sudden surprise that took her unawares.</p><p>"Mmm …" Both Lord and Lady Sinderby nodded in unison. "For quite some time when we lived with him in New York. Mr. Zatara taught him escape artistry and sleight-of-hand, in exchange George lugged his boxes from show to show from Queens to the Jersey Shore. He also helped him test risky new tricks." Atticus nodded. "He was good, though not quite the showman that Mr. Zatara was born to be. Though, I never quite knew what George was going to do with all the things that Mr. Zatara taught him. He certainly hasn't made a go at being a Magician since then." He shrugged.</p><p>"No, but I dare say he's made jolly good use of the things he learned during his time in America and Mexico." Lady Edith assured them with a troubled look of a mind cast into dark memories and knowledge. Her family may have been ignorant of much of George's adventures. But as someone who wrote about them in serialized short stories in her magazine, the Marchioness was more than fully aware of the amazing things that her nephew had lived through and seen … as well as the truly horrifying and terrible.</p><p>"Did you ever meet this Sensei of my grandson's, Mr. Everman?" Lady Grantham asked lifting her spoon to her lips. "Perhaps you knew his name?" There was an inquisitive girlishness in the hostess's voice as she finished her pudding. Doing her best in keeping their guest involved and at the center of the conversation as not to rudely leave him behind.</p><p>"Uh …" He balked a moment. "Well, I heard of him, I'll say. Mrs. Levinson, as you know, she was a bigtime Democrat, didn't trust no Negros or Chinamen. She, heh, she and Georgie used to get into it- a lot- about the kid's friends and the two of them's different attitudes toward other races, if you catch my meaning. Your boy, he, uh, he always had a knack for making the most, well, <em>interesting</em> acquaintances that one wouldn't expect to be found walking up on Fifth Avenue or staying in Newport over the summer." He scratched his neck nervously.</p><p>"I see nothing has changed then." Lady Mary muttered into her wine snidely, making Tom and Lady Grantham glare.</p><p>"Anyone of interest to you, Mr. Everman?" Sybbie asked lightly.</p><p>"Nah, not really. I wasn't no Republican the way Georgie was, out there, mixing with strange Magicians, and Chinamen."</p><p>"Really, not even with those who were both? Say like … <em>Tatsu Suchong</em>?"</p><p>
  <strong>CLINCK!</strong>
</p><p>The moment that Sybbie casually let slip the name they all swore they could hear Mr. Everman go stiff. The entire table looked up when he let his spoon clatter to his plate in sudden shock. With panicked eyes he gazed up at the young beauty. Her long ringlets of pure silk, her bluish silver satin gown, and black choker. She was dazzling in the dim light and shifting shadows. But there was an edge to her that was unmistakable. Her eyes gleamed in the flickered candles like a feline predator that catches sight of the prey after following the scent for a merry hunt.</p><p>For most of the dinner he had been sure that Lady Mary Crawley's fancy little lap kitten was teasing and tormenting him. That Sybbie Branson was giving him the air of being a flirtatious and spiteful upper-class great lady who lost out on an acting gig and was churlish on the fact that the spoiled little princess had never been told "no" in her entire luxurious life. That he must be punished and humiliated in public so that he might punish and humiliate her in his bed as the manor slept.</p><p>But with the utterance of just one name, Ms. Sybil had revealed her scheme. Here, in this instance, it came to why he was brought so far from London, into seclusion of the countryside. It now occurred to him why she pressed so hard about George Crawley and their time - he and Gilda's - with him in New York. Sybil Afton Branson knew everything from the moment they left London. And when she charmed him into coming along, he thought for just a moment, an afternoon, that when dinner was over, he might come to his room to find the beautiful young princess lounging on a silk bedspread in nothing but choker and jewels. With a wilting pout, Ms. Sybil might convince him for a word of recommendation to Mr. Brady to be Freya's replacement on the picture. And maybe a year ago, for the right price to a future step-papa, she would be his to do with what he had been dreaming about for days.</p><p>But now he could kick himself for not heeding the advice that every stuck-up asshole in a London ballroom warned him about. What they told him when they saw that beautiful girl turn and catch his eye with a soft wilting smile that enchanted him. It was the same warning that hunters gave about encountering some females during certain times of a season. Their advice was simply this: Wherever Ms. Sybil Afton Branson went these days, '<em>he'</em> was not far behind.</p><p>From this very moment it became so very crystal clear that this teenage queen with an eye on picture show stardom was not playing hard to get. Ms. Branson was not throwing off her family's scent so that they wouldn't suspect that she planned to give herself to an up and coming movie producer in exchange for Hollywood clout. She lured him here. With a smile, a look of demure gentleness, and those tight pencil skirts that showed off that gorgeous ass, he fell hook line and sinker. This wasn't a coincidence, or a favor called in by fortune's gamble. When Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Dennis Nayland Smith went outside the department for help in finding a missing Movie Star, it wasn't just one person who met him on the roof top of London Police headquarters. There were two of them. The Comet, and his sleuthing partner, a motor heiress with Celtic blood …</p><p>And Chris Everman had wandered right into their trap.</p><p>"Mr. Everman, is everything alright?" Cora tilted her head inquisitively, frowning at her eldest grandchild in confusion and blanket chastisement for a crime undetermined.</p><p>The chair squealed when the average sized man shot out of it, causing Ladies Grantham and Hexham to reel back. The man in question leaned over as if to snatch the girl up. Quickly, Lady Mary caught her daughter's arm and tugged her against her, while Marigold threw herself against her sister, clinging to her tightly in protective embrace and squeezing her eyes shut in fear. Immediately, defensively, Tom Branson and Lords Grantham and Sinderby stood in reaction.</p><p>"Steady on, sir!" Robert suddenly snapped at the aggression that was pointed at his beloved granddaughter.</p><p>"I'm sorry, Lord Grantham, Lady Grantham …" The man was now sweating profusely as he barely made eye contact with his hosts. "But I, but I, well, I must go now! Thank you! Thank you for everything! But I gotta go!" He turned and made for the door.</p><p>"Mr. Everman!"</p><p>"Sir, stop at once!"</p><p>"I've got to go! I've got to go!"</p><p>The manic character pushed right through Thomas Barrow who had stepped forward in defense of Ms. Sybbie and Marigold when he thought the man would accost them. The butler stumbled back against the shadowy crimson wall with eyes alight in anger. Throwing napkins down to the chairs squeaking and rattling, the rest of the Grantham family stood at such a sudden reversal. Tom, Mary, and Cora quickly converged on Sybbie to ask if she was alright and to enquire just what had happened, and what exactly their beloved girl was 'playing at'. But Robert only had to glance at his prized beauty, standing next to Marigold, to know, somehow, what might be going on. With a sigh at the knowing look shared with the girl at his side, he motioned for Thomas and Richard Ellis, and his sons-in-law to follow. Behind them came Edith, Lucy, and Rose. Soon all in the dining room joined in confused pursuit.</p><p>Meanwhile, a fleeing man, sweating and hunted like a beast, darted blindly with a crash against sundries. His breath was caught in a shuttered sigh of panic as he sprang from the small corridor that led from the dining and ante rooms back into Downton's Great Hall. But as he sprinted forward with abandon, looking behind himself, he startled to a halt. In his mania to escape, the movie producer suddenly found himself adrift in a thick robe of pitch black to which he had run so deep into that he could not find his way back.</p><p>When he had come downstairs to join the rest of the Crawley family for dinner, the Great Hall had been lit with a fire in the stone fireplace. End tables had been lit by gilded lamps and a hanging chandelier of crystal at the center. When they exited the library to go to the dining room, there was even more light, as tall standing reading lamps had been switched on next to seats by the fire or in the corners near potted trees.</p><p>But when he exited the corridor, he had found no lamps turned on, no chandelier agleam, and even the fire in the hearth was doused. All he could see was the dim glow of dying embers giving off sauntering smoke that oozed dimly into this abyss. There, in the middle of the pitch-black hall, he found only a yawning chasm of still and hollow darkness that obscured his vision. He became acutely aware of his heavy breathing that echoed loudly in the silent hall, his feet thudding distinctly on thrown rug as he wandered about for a moment, stricken dumb by the drastic change in environment.</p><p>Above, he saw the glimmer of stars from the glass sunroof that domed above Downton's foyer. Searching for any visibility, his desperate gaze was then drawn to the first landing of the great stairs of Downton. There he saw streams of silvery moonlight cascade in thick angles upon the John Singer Sargent portrait of a young Cora Levinson. In a heavenly vision, the porcelain teenage heiress sat a garden swing in a long sky-blue gown, about her were Roman columns wrapped by trellises of roses. The pinks, purples, and maroons of the blooming pedals seemed saturated in the pale light that was thrown across the tall canvas.</p><p>Hearing the sound of approaching voices, Mr. Everman quickly darted forward. He did not know the layout of the house, or how much time he would have. But there was something human in his instinct to run to the light, wherever he could find it. He didn't have time to pack. But he knew that he could grab a few valuables that he didn't allow himself to part with from his room at "The Criterion". Plus, if push came to shove, he had plan B and C in his waistband and coat pocket. There was no way that the fops in livery he saw coming in and out of the anteroom were gonna stop him from getting away. Quickly, though not quietly, the former chauffeur made pace for the staircase as he heard feet approaching.</p><p>Then … he stopped.</p><p>He had been crossing the hall at an angle, moving toward the tall staircase from the right, coming out of the dining room … when he saw it. The red glow from the chamber of a smoking pipe. He saw the rise and fall of the flickered embers of the inhale and exhale of the blue clouded smoke in the darkness. But he didn't stop till he saw them, glittering like gems that reflected torchlight in a cave. With every slow exhaling breath, the growing light of the embers were reflected in a pair of deeply haunted eyes. They were cold and emotionless, affixed to the figure cloaked in darkness as if Mr. Everman were prancing through a spring meadow at Easter Luncheon.</p><p>In the long silence a cold dread creeped up the man's spine as he was frozen still by the sudden realization that he was not alone. The breathing of the silent watcher was now audible with each slow ponderous puff of the pipe. The desperate man felt locked down, held in place by the reflection of orange and amber in the disembodied eyes of a shadow slumped leisurely on the wooden bench built under the railing of the Grand Staircase next to the ascent of the servant's stairs. In the dark he noticed that the slouching figure had a single foot lifted and pressed against an ottoman footrest as one who was lounging in his own home … patiently waiting on an expected guest.</p><p>"Been a long time, Johnny."</p><p>The voice that echoed through the silent great hall was one that Chis Everman did not know. It was deep with a trembled bass. But despite the use of theatrics, there was still a considerable youth to it. Whoever had cornered the Hollywood man was not as old as one might have thought him. But his accent was not native to Upper-Class or Working-Class England. It was hardboiled and undoubtingly American. But it had been unfocused, with no clear region of origin. He had a cowboy's practicality, a southerner's directness, a New Yorker's toughness, and all coming from an educated Englishman's understanding of Syntax. But to which sentence structure or region it originated from, it did not matter. What mattered was that in the dark a pair of cerulean eyes and that voice ripped the very soul from a guilty man.</p><p>And if the stories were true, he was the last person that Freya Ingrid's kidnapper wanted to be alone with in the dark.</p><p>"Oh, uh, hey … Georgie."</p>
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  <span class="u"> <strong>Entr'acte Music</strong> </span>
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  <em>"Main Theme (LA Noire)" - Andrew Hale</em>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Prologue: Presto! DOUBLE CROSS! - Part II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>It ain't Hollywood if you don't have at least a couple of names in your back pocket.</p><p>Christopher Mezzanote had been born and raised on Staten Island. On the trip from Sicily his old man had gotten sick on board after two weeks of sharing a bunk next to the chicken cages. The Officer at Ellis Island had almost refused to allow his parents to stay. But he had been convinced to make an exception based on what a pretty little Italian thing was willing to do for the boyfriend she ran away with from Palermo. Ever since then, Christopher knew he was getting kicked even before he got a start.</p><p>The man was cursed to be blessed with many things that were so easily taken away from him. He had a mother who loved him once, a stepfather who tolerated him. But when you had a good-looking mom, people took advantage of that. Maybe the old man couldn't get rent on time, and the local Don had arranged a 'payment plan' that involved his wife. Maybe, after a while, the modest butcher sees his wife in her fancy underwear, gift from the gangster, and thinks she likes being his plaything too much. So, on a drunken night, he cuts her face with one of his tools of the trade, this man that she loved and left her entire family for.</p><p>Suddenly, that same old man who you spent your entire life looking up too, turns out isn't your father. Turns out that he tells you to look up some Ellis Island Customs Officer named Everman before he goes out for a walk and never comes back. That was till some Irish cops turn up to ask your mother to go identify a body that washed up in the Hudson, cement on his feet. No one<em>, no one</em>, marks up the Don's work of Sicilian art and gets away with it. Yet, in the same breath, well, now that gorgeous little Italian squeeze ain't looking that great with a scar running across her face. So, they give her a couple of bucks and cast her and her kid out of the neighborhood.</p><p>What do you do when your ma is pissed at the world, pissed at you for even existing? What do you do when you spend the rest of your childhood boiling the feathers off dead Chickens, smelling shit, factory rust, and the human body odor from the boiling pits? It was that stench of desperation that doesn't wash out in the single bedroom apartment you share with a woman who has given up. That's when you get mad, you get conditioned to hearing the same damn song in Italian that she sings every night on the fire escape, cursing at you when the gin runs out. Maybe one day, you just had enough, maybe one day you come home to her beaten to an inch of her life, limping down the street, screaming that some goon hanging outside the dive took the rent money you thought you hid from the lush.</p><p>Maybe you chase that son of a bitch for a whole night … then you catch him on the seedy side of Park Avenue. There that gumba is, throwing around a dumpy little rich guy too drunk to fight back. Then, remembering the old man, dreaming about the story of a boat ride from Palermo next to chicken cages. It was knowing that same smell of their death and shit. Then, being reminded everyday of that anger by waking up to seeing the glare on the scarred face of that same pretty country girl that he had given up everything for, watching her son sleep in contempt … it might just make you feel that same anger that caused the man to mutilate his soul mate. Then, having the thug who decided he was going to make your life more miserable, just because he can, in your sight …</p><p>You hold nothing back when you go at him.</p><p>Harold Levinson and Ms. Penny … whateva, were impressed by the way the kid handled the scrap with the high-end muscle that had been hassling the little rich man for 'hogging all the action' when he swept into the joint throwing twenties around. Chris didn't precisely win the fight. But when the police came, one of them got arrested and Harold Levinson vouched that the other was 'with him'. And for the price of recouping the stolen rent money and a get out of jail voucher, the small man asked if the kid could drive him and his 'date' home to Fifth Avenue.</p><p>Seeing the kid blinded by the fancy lights and architecture, Harold asked if the scrapper would be willing to do this full time? Chris Mezzanote, who was thankful that Mr. Levinson and his gal pal were too drunk to notice him fumbling his way around the driver's wheel for the first time, should've said no. But truth be told, anything would be better than waking up one more morning next to a naked woman that smelled of booze and smoke glaring at him as if he had done something wrong by simply existing.</p><p>So, he said he was up for anything.</p><p>That was when he became John Doe, "Johnny", on account that Harold Levinson was too drunk to remember his "Helluva Guinea" name by the end of most nights, and Martha Levinson was not interested in knowing it, period.</p><p>But it had been years since anyone had called him Johnny. But the last time, the last few moments when he was known by it, was certainly on his mind when he heard it uttered again after so many years away from New York. The very sound of it, took him back to the abandoned subway station. He still heard Gilda yelling for him to go, to run from the scene that he watched from a distance. He still saw it, saw him, the young boy kneeling by the dead old man at the center of the cobweb covered ancient platform. His bloody and damaged fists were over his eyes in grief as he bent over his master's unmoving chest. About them were unconscious and dead men in black robes and head coverings, members of "The Celestial Order of Si-Fan". Assassin sent after two secret lovers who had in their possession an ancient relic of exceeding sanctity which they had stolen for the trivialness of petty start-up cash in Hollywood. For just a beat his heart broke and he questioned everything he knew himself to be when he heard the enraged grieving howl from a young apprentice that echoed down the abandoned service tunnel of the underground ruins of the old city.</p><p>Even now he could hear its pained echo while entrapped by the singularly haunted gaze that was hardened by a dozen more losses since that night that Johnny Doe and Gilda O'Hara had left the boy to despair.</p><p>The darkness that consumed the Great Hall of Downton Abbey seemed deeper, richer, like molten fudge at the center of a decadent cake. The glow of the embers in the pipe chamber that reflected off cerulean irises created a sinkhole effect in the lack of any light to be found elsewhere. Everman was quiet for a long moment, sweat pouring down his featureless face, its salty tang drifting in the drafty night to the lounging figure with owl eyes that gleamed in the abyss.</p><p>There was no hiding it, not here, not in this expansive atmosphere of drafty open spaces filled with old places of a times long past. It was in the darkness of the subterranean ruins of the forgotten old city that they had last parted. Now, it was darkness of an ancient manor house, a gothic castle, lost to time, in which they met again. The youth didn't have to say anything, Chris Everman knew it was there, in that small space right between them, unmoving, lifeless, yet deafening in the silence. It was the body of an old man, a martial arts master, who gave his life to save a couple of dumb and selfish kids in love that got mixed up in things that went right over their heads.</p><p>Christopher Mezzanote, John Doe, and Chris Everman had spent years trying to outrun what happened in New York, down an abandoned sewer service hatch, and at the center of an ancient Gilded Age subway station. Yet, he found that all his attempts to outrun it took him in a circle that led right back to those same eyes watching him in the dark … knowing what he and the woman he had loved did and what it cost when they did it.</p><p>"You forgetting to be somewhere, Johnny Boy?" Whoever he was now, it was not the same boy recovering from wounds that John Doe was introduced too in the San Sochi garage long ago.</p><p>When the silhouette spoke, it was with whiffing plumes of puffed smoke from the corner of his mouth. The invisible haze sauntered over the nervous Hollywood man washing him with a scent that was neither tobacco nor a narcotic. It had a scent of apples, washed in sea salt, and roasted over autumn harvest. He found it delectable, yet, it made him feel funny, but not in a drugged sort of way. Instead, it produced a heightened sense of nostalgia in which his memory was so vividly crisp as if seeing things in greater detail in his mind. It was the very opposite of being high, but an acute awareness of one's own mind in all the gregarious turning of its mechanisms. One might imagine that such pipe leaf was not smoked for pleasure or escapism, but to induce a focus to a problem that was pressing. Despite its highly pleasing aroma, it was certainly not a smoking herb in which one would ever become addicted too. Fore, the uninitiated and untrained might go insane when left to the awareness of the ticking clockwork of their own consciousness. It was distracting, the hyperawareness making things seem sluggish in response to real time.</p><p>"Wha … what do you mean?" He swallowed, trying desperately hard to seem casual despite the darkness, the second-hand effects of the smoke, and those eyes. "Where am I supposed to be?" He asked with a wipe of his brow.</p><p>"I thought you'd be in the tomb with Gilda … Pining away over her."</p><p>"What's that supposed to mean?"</p><p>He asked more quickly and defensively than he wanted. He watched the last of the embers in the pipe burn down, the light in the cerulean eyes dimming away as he let loose the last exhales of smoke out into the gloom of Downton's empty hall.</p><p>"Romeo and Juliet …" He said emotionlessly. "What kinda Guinea are you?" he asked in mocking.</p><p>The man paused watching the fading light of the glow disappearing. It brought him a sense of anxiety that was weighing heavily on him. He was drawn to the eyes, frozen, mastered by them. But at least he knew where the kid was. When he had smoked the last of the leaf in his pipe, Everman knew that there was no telling where he might get to … or where he might strike from in the dark.</p><p>"Ahh … heh, well, um, right." He cleared his throat, humoring the comment as he might a round of ball busting from the old days at San Sochi. "Well, I mean, yous was always the book worm, ain't ya, Georgie?" He leveled with him. His heartbeat quickened as the gleaming orange and red dwindled into the dark. Slowly, the movie producer reached back under tux jacket for what was in the waistband of his trousers.</p><p>"You gonna tell me that's unhealthy?" The shadowy figure asked. Eyes casually watching the man's hand reach back as he slowly blew a smoke ring into the dark.</p><p>The Hollywood producer's breath came unevenly, feeling the cold metal touch his palm. "Only when you start getting ideas in your head, see …" He chuckled nervously. The pretenses were starting to drop, the curtain twitching before the unveiling of the opening scene for the last show of the night.</p><p>"Like?" The silhouette gave what one might consider a 'dangerous' smirk half shadowed in nightshade and amber.</p><p>"Like …" He took a deep breath. "Thinking that there's more to a story than there ain't." A look of frightened intensity flickered in his eyes as the glow from the pipe diminished, leaving nothing but a cold breath of the manor's abyss. "Sometimes things don't work out, sometimes people ain't what they seem … and you cut your losses." He nodded.</p><p>"Is that right?"</p><p>"I mean, looks at ya, big house filled with gorgeous women, and all the money in the world. And still ya holding onto the past."</p><p>There was a long pause that seemed to last forever before the silhouette answered.</p><p>"You went through that third hatch a mile down the Subway line under 54th? You saw the wrecked trains, smelt the neglect of the dilapidated station in cobwebs? You looked out and saw the main street storefront buildings of the old city that they built over? You saw a man, a good man, take a javelin to save you and your girl even after you stole his sacred item, because, it was the right thing to do? A girl and an item you betrayed us for and now you've sold out to the very enemy who killed the man who saved you and her from? … Bit too late to think there's a way out of this, eh, Johnny?"</p><p>There was just a flicker of Lady Mary Crawley's distinctive eyebrow twitch mimicked when he heard just the hint of a metallic click from the back of Chris Everman's dress trousers. He puffed out a cloud of smoke from the edge of his mouth as he lounged fearlessly. But after a long moment, the last of the light from the chamber died away. Then, there was nothing but shadows and anticipation in the last cloud of haze that lingered aimlessly in the dark. The sweaty hand on the grip of the item in the producer's trouser waistband tightened, the middle knuckle twitched. Meanwhile the sinew of tendons and muscles in the silhouette's legs went taut in anticipation of sudden action that was a hair's breadth away.</p><p>"What did <em>The</em> <em>Spider</em> give you for <strong>The</strong> <strong>Dragon</strong>?"</p><p>Suddenly, the lights of the chandelier above Downton Abbey's great hall came on with thunderous wiring noise and thud.</p><p>"No, Mama!"</p><p>The impenetrable blackness that had seemed deep and layered in a vast and hollow abyss was replaced by a blinding and disorienting flash of pure white and gold. Yet, only the surface of the situation changed, while the status quo was unmoved. Now, instead of a yawning chasm of obscurity, there was a glare so bright and pristine that the tension was cut as a foot breaks a line of gunpowder that had been lit. Both combating figures, moments from striking, were blinded suddenly, each turning away in disorientation, covering their eyes.</p><p>By the light switch, Lady Mary Crawley, in her skintight red satin gown and black silk gloves was yanked away. Her offending hand had been alertly grabbed in vain by her daughter Sybbie. There was now a crowd of the Crawley family gathered at the mouth of the hall leading to the Dining Room. Like the two figures by the grand staircase, they were also disoriented. Except, it was not by the light, but by what was happening. As both figures desperately tried to get their bearings, many of the family wandered toward them, looking back and forth between the bench and the strange reaction of Sybbie trying to stop Mary from doing what seemed logical.</p><p>"George?"</p><p>The family treaded lightly to the bench area. There they found a tall young man that they would recognize anywhere, though they might not associate him with who he was. His father's blonde locks had washed out by his twelfth birthday, leaving a single streak of stubborn gold in a head of waving black curls for some years afterward. He was tall now, taller than everyone in the House of Grantham. Expeditions to North Africa and The Serengeti, years in the American South and Southwest, and the Badlands of Mexico, had made him darker in tan than most. Long gone was the British accent, dispensed with even before his exile from the Imperium. He should be a stranger, someone that they didn't know or acknowledge. But for all the differences, they were haunted by unmistakable traits whose genesis could've only originated from the House of Grantham.</p><p>His waving curls of raven and cerulean eyes were the coloring of Lady Grantham through and through. The fair face of many maidens' dreams was the likeness of his Aunt Sybil in masculine. His brow, jaw, frame, and height gifted by Lady Mary's impeccable genes. On the surface there was very little of Matthew Crawley in the boy physically. But as to if he was a member of the House of Grantham … one only needed to place him side by side to Sybbie to quickly mistaken the two for being twins born to Lord and Lady Grantham in their later years. There could be no denying he was a Crawley of the House Grantham …</p><p>Yet, for the most part, they still did.</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY5Ox9Zlds4">
    <em>("Johnny's Story" - Leo Birenberg &amp; Zach Robinson)</em>
  </a>
</p><p>That boy who they believed the name George Crawley belonged to was short, shorter than Sybbie. He had blonde wavy hair cut neatly and was dressed in little tweed jackets and silk ties. That was who he was before the Christmas of 1926. He was a boy that the Crawley family was still waiting to return. But ten years later there was no semblance of that small child. He had died the same day as sweet baby Caroline. His body, weakened to the point of death by the chill he caught from exposure during his failed rescue, was crated up along with all his things and sent to Crawley House to die alone in Matthew Crawley's old room. None amongst his family, embittered by a young boy's failure, found that they had the strength to see two children die so close together. And it had been true, that boy did die. The George they knew and loved till that point had fell trying to save a baby sister when no one else would. But in that blonde boy's stead, someone else, a youth whose iron will out battled death's plutonian shadow, rose from his father's bed a new person.</p><p>He was someone who would spend most of his remaining years at Downton bearing the blame for the death of his baby sister by his family. Their sorrowful confusion and misplaced anger at such a senseless death of young innocence induced a bitter resentment for the failed rescuer. And for a long time, he was ostracized and excluded from all the familial engagements of the House. He was not allowed to attend tea, disinvited from all outings, and eventually barred from anywhere but the servant's hall of Downton Abbey if he were to darken their doorstep. In doing so, they made an enemy out of Isobel and Dickie, who shunned the family in favor of their grandson. And though these bans and persecutions came at Mary's own ordering, most of the staff ignored them, fore Ladies Grantham and Pelham would not stand for such things against the boy. Yet, still, in support of Mary's grieving, they all still banished their heir to the village of Downton and Crawley House, shunning him in public for his remaining years as if they did not know him. Many of these cruel sentiments were now long exercised, deeply grieved, and mournfully regretted by those who loved him.</p><p>But the damage had already been irreparable. One moment of weakness in the broken hearts of the House of Grantham had defined a heroic, tormented, and dark young figure who ever lived in the shadow of Lady Mary Crawley's impossible labor lain at a small boy's feet long ago. There it stayed, looming over him and everything that he had ever done like a black omen. It gave him purpose, drive, and ever entrapping him in repetition of deeds of greater valiantry and renown in repentance for what he could not do.</p><p>Ten years, since the very night the boy awoke alone in Crawley House, stumbling to the graveyard, and weakly falling to his knees in front of his sister's fresh grave. Ten years since the boy, taking the turned soil in his hand and realized, in a deep heartbreak, that the baby girl's death was not a fever nightmare. And Ten years since he vowed that he would never again fail. Since then he had sought out fighters, explorers, adventurers, for a Jesuit education in all matters to find out the one truth that had alluded him for most of his life. Through great sorrows, terrible tragedies, and heartbreaking losses. Through great feats of courage, things of unbelievable wonder and amazement beheld by human eyes, and no small amount of daring in the face of incredible odds. The quested answer that George Crawley sought was simply this: Could he have done it? Could he have saved her that morning like his mama had believed? Was he Matthew Crawley's son where it really counted?</p><p>These long ten years of battle, suffering, and adventure was what made the figure who wore the name George Crawley … and who he had become was the antithesis of the hopes and dreams held for the heir of the House of Grantham.</p><p>"Darling …"</p><p>Edith was the first to the young man in denim trousers tucked into tall supple Mexican Federales boots and a faithful peacoat of beaten mahogany leather. He had his hand shielding his eyes, cursing under his breath, and a white-hot rage was building. Lady Hexham, being most familiar with her nephew's exploits, even taking part in some of them, knew that by his temper and Sybbie's reaction to Mary that they had all walked into something that they shouldn't have … something particularly dangerous.</p><p>"What in the blazes is going on?!" Robert demanded, unhappy with the secrets being kept under his roof and the unacceptable behavior of their guest at his table.</p><p>Quickly, Lady Grantham, ever being the good hostess, made a B-line for Mr. Everman. She couldn't say that she didn't agree with her husband about the man's behavior. But she also couldn't say that Sybbie was right in whatever she was playing at during dinner. It wouldn't be the first time that her girl had conducted herself with mean spirited intent in order to humiliate a guest at their table in the past. As much as Cora loved her little girl, she was fully aware of the bullying cruelty that the teenage heiress had a reputation for subjecting other unfortunate girls of society too in private.</p><p>But this time Cora's fair mindedness and doubt in her girl's intentions could cost her.</p><p>"Get back!"</p><p>"Granny, watch out!"</p><p>In a flash of an instant, the moment the white silk gloved hands of Lady Grantham touched a confused and disoriented Chris Everman, he panicked. Immediately, to the sudden shock and gasp of all but one, the man produced a shiny chrome plated pistol from the waistband of his trousers. He blindly grabbed for Cora who reeled away from his grip upon the bedazzled bodice and wispy see through sleeves of her cream and gold evening gown. But before he could get a sure hold on Lady Grantham, the girl whose intentions she questioned, jumped in. Quickly, Sybbie broke the man's hold on her granny, shoving her out of his reach. But before she could step away, the movie producer snatched the girl up in one foul move. For a moment the two struggled, but to no avail.</p><p>"Sybbie!"</p><p>"Sir, that is enough!"</p><p>"Let her go!"</p><p>With a whine of protest, the girl was stretched painfully straight against her captor. Quickly and unkindly, the man whipped the beauty around to face everyone. Barring his forearm against her supple pale throat covered by choker, the man jammed the barrel of his gun against Sybbie's temple. Crushing her against his front, the man ducked slightly behind the girl's head of glossy black tresses. He backed away, keeping track of Thomas advancing to his left, Richard Ellis to the right, while Tom, Robert, and Atticus trailed his retreating paces. Chris twisted and turned both he and his hostage, working his way to better keep everyone in front of him. But always at the forefront, seemingly terrified, and yet dauntless in awareness of self-harm was Lady Mary. The sleek woman's red tinted amber eyes were wide, her breath trapped in her chest. Each time the man moved away, she followed, clutching Tom's arm, her other hand clasped over her own mouth.</p><p>"Please, please let her go!"</p><p>"Don't come any closer!"</p><p>We won't but promise you won't hurt my little girl!"</p><p>"It's going to be okay … Daddy, Mama, don't get too close."</p><p>At the apex of a situation running headlong into critical mass, tormented tears fell from Lady Mary's cheeks and Tom Branson had never been more afraid in his life. Lord Grantham was white as a sheet behind his daughter and son-in-law while clutching Lady Grantham's hand, who was frozen in fear. Atticus had his wife pressed behind him. While Lady Rosamund and Lucy both restrained and protected an utterly terrified Marigold who was vainly reaching out for Sybbie to take her hand. Meanwhile, the man in question manhandled the lovely girl in evening finery, panicked and frightened of being discovered and cornered.</p><p>"I ain't gonna be no one's headline! You hear me?! I ain't gonna be some footnote in a fluff piece in 'The Sketch' about some Great Lady Sleuth's big whimsical case … Now, just, just back off! Alright! I see you, Jeeves!</p><p>"Ellis, pull back!"</p><p>"That's right, I got her, and I'll waste her right here, so, get back! I'll do it, I'll do it! DO YOU HEAR ME!"</p><p>"Yeah, we hear you, Johnny … you're yelling, aren't you?"</p><p>Yet, there was only one voice that the gunman responded too. And that belonged to a figure behind a wide eyed and anxiety ravaged Lady Edith. When Chris Everman turned, he saw, much to his shock and confusion, a cold and collected figure sitting calmly on the polished wood bench. In a sea of panic, George Crawley was calmly using a pocketknife to scrape out the embers of his smoking pipe from the chamber into a potted tree nearby. At no point, since the beginning of the commotion, had George reacted to what happened. He had watched for a moment or two, before deciding to fix a more manageable situation. Slowly, some with puzzlement, some with outrage, the entire room watched the youth quietly manage his pipe of fine crafting that had ancient runes of pre-history carved upon it.</p><p>"I've got her, Georgie …" He warned twisting the beauty toward him to show her off.</p><p>The girl was calm as well, much calmer than their family was. For a long moment George and Sybbie shared a glance of matching eyes. Their look was unreadable, but undeniably conspiring in a way that only two people who shared a great love and turn of mind could do without a word. After a pause the sound of scraping tool on wood finishing echoed in the tense anxiety of the large room.</p><p>"I can see that …" The young man grunted while blowing into the instrument through the bit. After another beat of quiet attendance to his unique smoking pipe, George looked up again and seemed … irritated to find Mr. Everman still standing there. "What are you doing?" He asked with a frown. This confused the gunman … and the Crawley family.</p><p>"What?" the panicked man heaved. "Wha … What do you think?" He showed Sybbie off again. "I, I, I got your girl." He shrugged looking around, sweat dripping on Sybbie's bare pale shoulder.</p><p>"Yeah …?" There was an almost sarcasm to the youth's unimpressed reply. "Congratulations." He muttered as he blew in his pipe again, trying to clear ash out of the airways. The entire situation took a strangely awkward turn as everyone, shocked, frightened, or near manic, suddenly had no place to put those emotions. When the movie producer remained static, the youth looked up again.</p><p>"Well …" He shook his head. "What are you waiting for?" He asked in aggravation, motioning to the front entrance with his pipe.</p><p>"…"</p><p>"You won the toss at lander, well done …" George sighed. "Make your move, tough guy." There was, what one in the Crawley family might say, an unhelpful amount of condescension in the young man's challenge. Perhaps even the grave sin of disinterest.</p><p>"Are you out of your mind?!" Lady Mary's velvety voice was filled with outrage that echoed down to the very bass of her last syllable.</p><p>But the woman was ignored in favor of a long and drawn out stare down between the two men. Sweaty and nervous, Everman watched with a frown as the youth placed the pipe back in his mouth, the bit clicking against a molar as he bit down on it. No one saw it, but it was felt in the tense moment. George measured up his enemy, long ago, and made a judgement about the man. A man who fled from scenes of great injustice, who put too much stock in having what other had that he didn't and held too dearly onto such superfluous things of status. In truth, if George Crawley believed, even for a second, that this man might be capable of hurting Sybbie, nothing in the universe would stop him from eliminating such a threat to the girl he loved above all else left to him.</p><p>There was a sting of pride in the judgment of the haunted gaze of the young man before him. Chris gritted his teeth, feeling anxiety well deep inside the longer the boy's eyes lingered, disarming him in fear. He pressed Sybbie harder against him, digging the pistol deeper against her temple. There was some bravado left of that kid on the street or in the poultry factory.</p><p>"I'll do it, Georgie, I promise!" He jerked the lovely debutante who moaned in discomfort.</p><p>It was then that Chris Everman realized what a truly dangerous mistake he had made.</p><p>It was wordless, the young man unmoving and stoic. But in his gaze, fire hardened from years of sorrow, tragedies, and fruitless victories, there was a glint that bore heavy upon the man's spirit. He had not forgotten the death of his master nor the selfish cause of it. There it lingered, soaking the ground that had turned muddier by the moment. But now Mr. Everman sank deeper in it than ever before.</p><p>Out of all the choices for taking a hostage, only in a moment's impulse would it be said that capturing the beautiful Sybbie Branson was the most logical amongst any in the Crawley family. She was, presumably, worth the operating budget of a small country in a fortune for ransom. She was the silky and glamorously pampered lap kitten of Lady Mary. The sole heiress to the profitable and 'up and coming' "Branson &amp; Talbot Motors". But above all else, in context of this situation, she was the closest thing to a weakness that could be found to the dangerous George "The Comet" Crawley's impenetrable armor. It seemed wisdom that whoever controlled the young beauty might control the dark vigilante. But all it took was one look to know the true falseness in such a fleeting hope.</p><p>He felt as a child did when making a rash decision in poor temperament, then gazing over to an authority figure and getting that strangling look that overrides the momentary satisfaction. It was then that you realize that the only expediency found in desperation was an understanding that the cold and deadly glitter in sharp eyes told the tale that it was the worst choice possible. That in a dozen universes of infinite possibilities, the outcome of this was uniform … this could only go one way. The grabbing of Ms. Branson had not dampened the young man's resolve. Instead, it only hardened his dark heart and hyper focused the aggression inside him. Chris Everman was not the first man to come to Downton Abbey and think that enslaving the lovely Sybbie to his will would give him mastery of the House of Grantham …</p><p>And yet, months later, no one had lain eyes upon Hollywood Heartthrob Roger Sinclair since George Crawley retook his ancestral home from the Nazi Saboteur and his mercenaries.</p><p>There was a sleepless malice of dark peril in a glance that terrified the movie producer. The cornered man inched foot by foot across the rug in front of the staircase bench. Tom and Mary followed as if they were entrammeled by chains wrapped to their little girl's waist. But they halted when the man stopped. He was entranced, trapped, in the young man's glare which followed him mercilessly. He felt the crossroads under tread.</p><p>To his left was the Grand Staircase of Downton Abbey that led to two wings filled with dozens of rooms. Right behind him was the front door to the dark and misty Yorkshire countryside. The choice was right before him. He could let Sybbie go and make a break for it, where a man raised in labyrinths of stone, metal, and glass wouldn't last an hour. There was not much hope when being hunted by a young ranger who was famed for being trained by the likes of Allan Quartermain and the greatest tribal hunters of the African Serengeti. Or he could let Sybbie go and bolt through the house and look for a secret way out. Surely a kid that hadn't slept a night under the Downton roof in ten years would've forgotten the secret paths … But somehow Everman doubted it.</p><p>Under panic for doing something so rash and completely out of character, the man clutched Sybbie closer. With a shutter, he rested his nose against the girl's bare shoulder, holding her tightly, like she was a childhood blanket rather than his hostage. The only safety he felt in that moment was to keep the beauty close, hoping, praying against the darkness of a perilous realm within the glance of a dangerous figure sitting calmly behind Lady Edith's glamourous form. With a shaky breath, his eyes terrified and manic, he led the girl backward up the stairs. It seemed to make it worse to be disconnected from the eyesight of the young detective who once more continued to clean out the embers from the chamber of his pipe. The very scoff under his breath and disbelieving shake of his head awoke a doomed inevitability of irrational fear in Chris Everman's heart as he ascended the staircase. The entire Grantham family watched helplessly and with despair as the man disappeared from the shadowy gallery above with their beloved gem of their county crown.</p><p>It wasn't till then that George moved at all. He quietly cleaned and tinkered with his ancient pipe till he was sure that Everman had dragged Sybbie out of sight. Then, pocketing his pipe, the youth finally stood. Immediately, he was peppered with a thousand questions. Most were lobbed with confusion, some in anger at the puzzlement of the situation. But George ignored all of them and made straight for Lady Mary who also demanded to know what was going on.</p><p>"Have you no …"</p><p>THUMP!</p><p>All the voices quieted in sudden silence and alarm. With wrath so black it looked murderous up close; George Crawley grabbed a handful of the silky bodice of Lady Mary's tight satin mermaid dress. With an aggressive twist and a loud slam, he shoved the woman against the wall between bench and servant's stairs at the base of the Grand Staircase. The woman's red tinted eyes which matched her dress and her son's vision were as large as galleons when she hit the wood hard. George was suddenly feral with a look of wild hate that marred his handsome face. Gone now was the cool and collected customer that seemed unfazed by the taking of the most prized treasure of the House of Grantham. In that moment, in his clutch, it looked as if he might murder the woman before him.</p><p>It wasn't bad enough that ten years ago Lady Mary asked her child to accomplish such an impossible feat that no one should've asked a boy so young. It wasn't enough that when he failed, she regarded him with such venom and hatred in a look that it scarred him for life. It wasn't even that she had thrown him out of his own house, to die alone, as far as possible from her as she could send him. Nor could it be said that the last words that they had before his exile was the bold claim that George Crawley was not her son. He had never forgotten, not in his darkest moments, that then Lady Mary Talbot was convinced that he was some other woman's son, a teenage farm girl's bastard switched at birth by a self-righteous Isobel in a charitable mood.</p><p>It was Lady Mary who proclaimed in wrathful fear that she would rather die a thousand terrible deaths before dishonoring the Grantham name by allowing a vengeful, violent, little animal become master of her grandmother and father's house. Leaving him with the parting words that she wished for him to have reversed places with Caroline or Matthew Crawley, a man she only barely allowed for the boy to call father, fore she could not prove that he was not his son. He remembered the echoing words chasing his stalking figure from the Downton Library that if Caroline was alive and he died in her stead she'd at least still have a husband and two daughters worthy of her. And had Matthew lived, they be no poorer without George, perhaps even better off. Now, after walking away his entire life from his mother's cruel words, letting his granny and Aunt Edith ever fight his corner, George was finally provoked to violence by Lady Mary.</p><p>And all because of a single stupid action of simply flipping on the lights.</p><p>
  <strong>THUEMPHTH!</strong>
</p><p>There was creaking and crackling of rippling fractures that resembled byways and highways of a map that spread through the impact point in the 19th Century wood panel finishing. If there had been any color in Lady Mary's pallid face it would've drained away when George smashed his fist inches from her head. Her cold heart stopped and in those moments in which existence lingered thinly in the ether, she bore deeply into the sheer rage in her child's eyes. She saw, then, just how far the deepness of hatred was in his heart. But it was not of her, but for fear itself.</p><p>The youth was consumed with a hatred for the fear of loss, for losing someone else he loved. It was a primal fear placed there, at the very core of a young man's heart, by the absence of the security and reassurance of a mother's love. A critical aspect of a child's life that a deeply grieving woman withheld out of spite, not for the boy, but for herself. Above all else, Mary had ever been aware of the knowledge that she had destroyed her child, her last child, in a moment of true despair when it seemed nothing else could save Caroline. For that Mary would never forgive herself, and the hatred she bore was for the selfishness of knowing that she still longed for her boy, even all these years later. Her love for him was like poison in her veins. It was the shocking wickedness in her own mind that even after all the horrible things done and said to tear him out of her heart, George's love was still all she thought about and wanted.</p><p>Everyone else in the Crawley family was frozen in fear. There was rarely a moment in which unbridled passion and rage was shown in the house, or between one another. Nor had such violence been shown in absolute intimidation by a creature so foreign to the House of Grantham's very nature like their heir. They were all dumbfounded by the overwhelming alienation of such situations. Yet, the remaining staff was not so wholly shocked or frozen by such displays, fore as Martha Levinson had once observed: The members of the Crawley's staff had known more about life than most of their employers would ever know.</p><p>It was in this that a restraining hand clutched George's coat lapel. Stiff, professional, but compassionately unviolent. Richard Ellis, George's Butler at Crawley House - and the occasional Downton Under-Butler when needed - held his master in half-restraint. But in Ellis's grip, they found that the youth was not amenable to reason.</p><p>George clenched his teeth at his servant. "Ellis, let go of my jacket." He warned slowly.</p><p>"Cap'n …" The Butler did not protest, but there was a suggestion in his deep but wavered Yorkshire accent.</p><p>"I said let go!" The young man snapped.</p><p>Eventually, but dutifully, the tall man did so, knowing that the action had not tempered his master, but it sobered him enough to regain his sanctity. When he stepped back, George returned to Mary who was still in his violent clutch. He leaned in ferociously, so close their noses almost touched.</p><p>"If anything happens to Sybbie …" George snatched the black silk covered wrist and lifted her arm up to behold. "I'll make sure you'll remember it!" He threatened with a wrathfully quiet snarl that was violently fierce as he showed his mother her own hand in warning. He looked nowhere but right into Lady Mary's eyes. There was no verbal reassurance or nod. But it was a promise felt like the tremor of an aftershock from a major earthquake that had shaken the woman down to her foundation.</p><p>His mother had stripped him of his honor for failing to save a baby girl. She had cast him out from the only home he had ever knew for his failure when the small boy was at death's door. Lady Mary had withheld his father's name and memory from him out of spite. And she left him to die across the sea for eight long years. So many things that he had lain at her feet and blamed her for that he could not escape in his nightmares. But of this, he would not allow her to walk away, not this time.</p><p>Whether by accident of pride or stupidity, he would not allow their mother to take Sybbie from him, this last shred of normalcy and decency in his life. The sum total of wholesome and chaste love left to him in this whole world. And in his wrathful vengeance, if it were so that Sybbie was lost due to Lady Mary's blunder, he would spend the rest of his life making sure that the insufferable effete snob would never forget what she had done. Just as her one piercingly dreadful glare of pure venomous hate had never let him forget for ten years what he couldn't one awful Christmas morning.</p><p>It lasted only a half a second, Lady Mary trying to comprehend the pending amputation of her offending hand, while getting lost in her own son's gaze. Then, it was rudely broken, when George angrily ripped Mary away from the wall by her bodice and wrist. He turned and flung her aggressively at Lord and Lady Grantham who were about to voice their opposition to what they had overheard from their grandson. Stumbling, the woman's parents caught her in unison as she was falling over. Lord Grantham had his eldest child by one of her arms while his wife held Mary by her ribs, both straining to support the woman's weight at a crouch and bending over. The statuesque woman who struggled and startled to her feet, slipping on high heels, was one part shocked and the other completely outraged at the humiliating manhandling. Her pride was burnt as she pushed away her mama and Tom who had come to her.</p><p>"That was completely uncalled for!" Robert spoke up in chastisement while still holding Mary's arm.</p><p>"Not now, Robert!" Cora snapped at her husband shoving Mary behind them not gently either. "George, what about Sybbie?!" She called after her Grandson.</p><p>"Yes, what is going on?!" Tom spoke up on her heels.</p><p>"Edith, call the police!" Rosamund ordered.</p><p>"Of course." The glamorous woman nodded, taking Marigold's hand when the girl rushed to her in confusion and fear.</p><p>"No!"</p><p>They all stopped when George called out to them.</p><p>"No one does a thing." He checked his family's machinations immediately.</p><p>"What do you expect us to do?!" Mary snapped at him.</p><p>"What you usually do …"</p><p>"Which is?"</p><p>"Nothing." He retorted with a venomous growl that was a pointed as a poison arrow to the heart.</p><p>When Caroline fell ill, they had done nothing, leaving one small boy to accomplish a mythological hero's task they knew was doomed to fail. When Mirada Pelham molested Sybbie as a girl and attempted to murder Marigold before she could tell anyone, it was not the Crawley family who came to the girls' rescue. It had been a nine-year-old George who had stormed Brancaster and cast Mrs. Pelham into a tub of boiling bleach where Marigold was almost plunged. When the Prince of Wales put a bounty on the boy's head for his refusal to deny the crimes committed against the girls to avoid scandal, the House of Grantham stood by. When mercenaries scourged the old village of Downton and sacked the Abbey in a vain attempt to assassinate young George, they had been in London, leaving their boy to hold their own men together in a fruitless struggle that left him seriously wounded. And when their own loyal tenants hid and absconded with the wounded boy out of the county under wagon haylofts and on refrigerated box cars, only Lady Grantham fearlessly came to him. Fevered and hallucinating, among the industrial graveyards of London, the boy was sent to his old mentor, the Sikh Science Pirate. Entrusted by Lady Grantham, the woman watched in tears as his clockwork pirate vessel bore her boy away, maybe forever, into the dawn.</p><p>For seven years no one lifted a finger to stop Lady Mary when her rule failed and fell to corruption. No one said a word when she transformed herself into the most horrible of tyrants, unmatched in cruelty and decadence in the five-hundred-year history of the House of Grantham. Her ice-cold solutions to stave off Depression starved half the county with unjust taxes and heavy-handed prosecutions of those who didn't pay the tribute to her nested dragon's hoard of finery. And when Charles Blake introduced Movie Star Roger Sinclair to Lady Mary Crawley in Hollywood, they found it all very exciting when she came home with him. But when that same man violated and entrapped Sybbie on threats of hurting Mary, when he blackmailed his fiancé with her little girl's ruin into condoning much of the evils done in her name, no one at Downton Abbey seemed to notice. It took George's return and blood chilling battle upon the rolling green moors of the Grantham county and estate to finally free all from the yoke of evil that they had so willingly allowed to settle into their house and lands.</p><p>So, it was, with many faces fallen in wounded guilt, that the Crawleys watched as George motioned both Thomas Barrow and Richard Ellis over.</p><p>"Ellis, I want you to go down and kill the breakers.</p><p>"Cap'n."</p><p>"Thomas, lock out the servants' entrance to the East Wing behind me."</p><p>"Sir."</p><p>The contrast between the aloof young man sitting on the bench, the enraged youth who had nearly caved his own mama's face in with his fist, and now the competent man of action was a whirlwind. One an act, one a raw childhood nerve touched by the one person who could, and the last a born leader of men. They all seemed an aspect of a larger whole that was truth feigning as deceit. Perhaps it was possible that he was all of them at once, shifting and varying from moment to moment. Either way it was not hard to comprehend that when he spoke to those under his command it was clear and purposeful. It was captured in Barrow and Ellis's eyes as the young master spoke. A sense of honorable manhood, fire hardened trials, and genuine trust had all built a character from ten years of Jesuit teachers on many adventures. When George Crawley spoke, they listened, they bought into what they heard, and they believed it, believed in him.</p><p>Even at an early age, the young master was beloved by most of the Crawley's tenants and staff. George had a way and connection with the common villager and farmer that was a higher grade than just genuine. They often considered him one of theirs as opposed to one of the Gentry. He ate with them, drank with them, listened to their gossip, stories, and complaints. He brawled against them and by their side in disputes that ended in laughter. The boy was a product of his grandmother Isobel's rearing and his late father Matthew's practicality. While Isobel might have held herself to a higher standard of self-righteousness, perhaps unintentionally looking down on the lower classes through condescension, her and Dickie's influence on the boy after being driven from Downton was clear. Their encouragement of the boy to make friends with the villagers and tenants and join in their struggles did much to save the Grantham name when it was in jeopardy a decade later. And never could one question the content of George Crawley's character when one saw how much love he inspired from the men whom named him Captain rather than M'Lord …</p><p>Fore, the title was inherited by a class system, yet the rank could only be earned.</p><p>They watched Ellis retreat quickly down the main servant's staircase, throwing open the door. Meanwhile, Thomas trailed a moment, waiting for the young master at the ascent of the stairs. But George didn't follow immediately. He instead paced to his grandfather. It would be foolish to say that the young man who spent much of his life in the wild, away from familial influence, was particularly deferential to his grandfather. But George knew that other people were, especially in times of crisis.</p><p>"Everyone stays here or goes back to the Dining Room. No one goes up or down that staircase till this is done." He told Robert.</p><p>"I'll come …" The older man took a deep breath to master a deep welling anxiety. The torment of his granddaughter with a gun to her head was agony to a man who fiercely loved the very embodiment of the best of their youngest daughter which she left behind.</p><p>"I will too." Tom strode forward.</p><p>"Not with me, you're not." George cut both off with curt dismissal.</p><p>"She's my daughter and she's in danger!"</p><p>"Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?"</p><p>"Something …"</p><p>"Something?</p><p>"Fine. So, I don't have the training you do ..."</p><p>"Listen, I'm not about to take an old man and a mechanic with heavy tread who hasn't been in a fight in nine years ..."</p><p>"Maybe … but that man was an IRA Assassin!"</p><p>"Wasn't he a quartermaster in the Royal Marines?"</p><p>"Not now, Edith!"</p><p>"Aunt Edith's right! Plus, you got him from behind."</p><p>"He was gonna shoot the King."</p><p>"Oh, for heaven's sake, Tom, look who you're talking too."</p><p>"Yeah, Congratulations, all you've proved is that I can't trust your judgement."</p><p>"What about Mexico?!"</p><p>"What about Mexico? You got kidnapped by mercenaries, dragged across the border, and was held up in a whorehouse till Aunt Edith and I came and broke you out during the town's "Day of the Dead" festival."</p><p>"How is this going to help Sybbie?!"</p><p>"Cause, I can help!"</p><p>"Yeah … like in Mexico?"</p><p>"I helped!"</p><p>"Aunt Edith dragged you out the back door in a full wedding dress and skull face paint!"</p><p>"I covered for us!"</p><p>"Tom, you shot a dog in its hind end."</p><p>"It was a guard dog!"</p><p>"<em>It was a police dog!"</em> George and Edith countered in perfect synchronicity.</p><p>"You were the one who said that the Federales can't be trusted!"</p><p>"I was talking about the officers, not their dogs!"</p><p>"I was a bit … off, alright! You would be too if you spent half a week getting your head kicked in."</p><p>"'Yeah? What by? The whores or the Mezcal?"</p><p>"I, uh, rather not say …"</p><p>"…"</p><p>"…"</p><p>"Bhí roinnt cailíní móra agus sláintiúla san áit sin, mo bhuachaill …"</p><p>"Yeah, I bet."</p><p>Tom cleared his throat a moment, conversing with George in Gaelic while refusing to glance back at his wife. He found it the better part of valor to leave ambiguous of if several rather heavy-set women of ill-repute or their strong cactus liquor had gotten the better of him during captivity. When he glanced up, Mary only shrugged, making an exasperated motion with her arms to say that she had no idea what anyone was talking about, though she was lying to herself. Meanwhile George and his aunt shared a knowing glare of the memories of their last shared adventure before … the business in New Orleans.</p><p>But when the young man used the awkward pause to depart, he was stopped by Lady Grantham.</p><p>"But why does it have to be you?" She asked in distressed worry.</p><p>"Oh, Granny." He sighed in endearing irritation that was tempered in wholesome gratitude. It had been a long time since anyone had cared or worried when he rushed headlong into peril.</p><p>"You don't have to do this alone!" Cora pleaded, not wanting both her grandchildren, Sybil's little girl and their only boy, to be in the same mortal danger, especially when she had just gotten them both back, Sybbie Spiritually and George physically. "You don't have to do this at all." The handsome Countess gripped his arm in restraint.</p><p>"Yes, I do." George cupped her silk covered knuckles with his hand.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Cause there's more at stake here than just Sybbie." He replied after a moment of hesitation.</p><p>"Then there <em>is</em> more to this!" Mary accosted. "You and Sybbie planned this?" She asked wrathfully. As usual, Mary's chastisement was met with her only son's sharp-tongued belligerence. He stepped forward at his mama.</p><p>"No, Mom, cause I usually make a habit of coming here every night to sit in the dark and listen to a bunch of over fancy stuffed shirts and padded bras talk a bunch of nonsense over a ludicrous dinner!" His retort was dripping with disdainful sarcasm. "Of course, we did, <em>Dipshit</em>!" He snapped at the woman.</p><p>Lady Mary was only momentarily taken aback by the aggression of the foreign expression. 'Dipshit' was a word that the woman had never heard in her life, yet, all the same, it stung to be called it in such a context. There was something that was unmistakably of Martha Levinson's influence in the way that her son called her out. It was a tingle, but it still chimed a bell in Mary's mind of a childhood inadequacy in which her Grandmamma had always made her eldest grandchild feel quite stupid … all of the time. And it was now, with George's flippant and angry response, that she felt that old anger build in her. There seemed to be only two people in Mary's whole life who could ever make her feel like so empty headed, her grandmother and her son.</p><p>However, Cora was quite aware of the word, having been called it more than once by her mother most of her life. She winced at its utterance and mourned it use as a marker of how far the reverence and level of respect that her grandson had for his mother had fallen. George's anger against Mary, and Mary's immaculate job of removing herself from George's life for ten years resulted in a question that Cora pondered of just how much her boy really saw her eldest daughter as his mother anymore. But that question was answered subconsciously by Lady Grantham herself when she gave her boy a strict reproachful tug on his sleeve that only a mother could in wordless scolding.</p><p>"You used Sybbie as bait?" Cora turned her grandson to face her.</p><p>When George met her gaze and saw the horror mixed with disbelief, something dropped inside him. He was stricken with a sudden and deep guilt that overcame him at the one glance from the closest thing to a mother that he had ever had.</p><p>"It was Sybbie's idea …" He said quietly, lowering his head as a child might when fessing up, knowing that it wasn't any excuse.</p><p>"And you let her!" Robert chimed in angrily, but his outrage was halted by a simple restraining lift of his wife's silk covered hand. Her eyes were laser focused on George; her grip tight on the boy's jacket.</p><p>When he looked up at his granny there was repentance under the judgement of her scornful shock. "I'll get her back." He promised, taking her hand off his sleeve, but giving it a squeeze. He then turned to Tom, releasing Cora's hand to place his on the man's broad shoulder.</p><p>Tom Branson wished that he could be as outraged as Robert. But when he looked into the youth's eyes, he didn't see his nephew, he saw … her. Tom had never quite noticed it consciously when the boy was little. And yet, he had always found himself being very fond of George. At first, he had thought it had been out of friendship to Matthew. Later, he simply figured it was due to his companionship for Mary as his best friend and co-parent of his daughter. Then, for a long time, it was because Sybbie loved him so, and the two had always been so inseparable that they seemed more like twins than cousins. Whatever one had, the other had to have it too. When Tom taught Sybbie Gaelic, he was not surprised that she insisted that he also teach George so they could have their own secret language. That would be a mistake that Tom Branson would learn to regret but once, and that was continuously.</p><p>Even when Caroline died and Mary's marriage to Henry fell apart, due in no small part to his massive conflicts with his stepson, Tom still held out for the young and increasingly angry George Crawley. It tore him apart to see Mary ignore him. It worried him that the boy labeled Henry a coward and threatened to kick his head in if he ever darkened the village of Downton again. He helped Cora and Edith do the best they could to mediate between the young rebel pitted against a cruelly neglectful Mary and an embittered Robert and Violet, all of which shunned him publicly. Even when Mary threatened to withdraw her friendship from Tom for not taking 'the family's' side in these disputes, he still would not budge on George. Even when Sybbie fell to heartbreak when he was spirited away, hurt beyond comprehension that she could not be with him in their formative years, Tom still did not allow Sybbie to disown him, no matter how much she claimed to hate him in those long years he was gone.</p><p>But all it took was one look at the grown-up young man that Sybbie, Marigold, Edith, and he met in a little saloon across the Texas Border outside of "Sonora's Death Row". Then, it clicked all at once. The cerulean eyes, the perfect wavy black curls, the way his voice got huskier when he said certain words. It was in how he squinted an eye shut when he cringed, and how he put his hands on his hips when he was angered or outraged. It was in his face, in his mannerisms, and his coloring. Mary used to joke that she wondered if they hadn't switched children. Sybbie always seemed more like what everyone thought Matthew and Mary's child would be. The girl having her uncle's considerable brain in understanding complex systems and Mary's love for finery and things that shined. George on the other hand seemed a lot more like … 'well, you know'.</p><p>But Tom didn't know, he truly did not understand till that moment in Mexico, eight years later, what Mary had always stopped short of saying. Since then, he could not escape thinking about it. Fore George Crawley looked and acted exactly like the son that everyone envisioned - and feared - that Sybil would've birthed into the world.</p><p>But it was more than just him being her mirror in masculine or having her mannerisms. There were things that he did that could not be inherited, that could only be taught, learned behaviors. The way he said words, the shift of the eyes while thinking, and the lift of the head and nod when the right thought came to him. These were things that a child learned from a parent or guardian by years of being with them. Yet, Mary was only barely pregnant with George when Sybil had died. Yet, the more and more time that Tom spent with the young man, the more he was convinced that some greater part of Sybil lived in him, or if not, than certainly was a guiding hand in the long lonesome years away from his home. Tom was not a firm believer in the supernatural, but he saw how deep and immediate a connection, an imprinting, that Mary had with Sybbie as a baby.</p><p>Now he couldn't get it out of his mind. It was the imagery of a dream. Sybil was in white, shining in a dark room. She would lean over a cuing and kicking baby in the dead of the night that had not known that he had been abandoned by a grieving mother. He could see her black curls fall over her shoulders as she leaned down and kissed his brow as she picked him out of his crib, rocking him, as she hummed and admired her daughter who slept peacefully in their shared crib. He couldn't say how he knew it happened regularly, but he knew it did, he felt it somewhere so deep inside himself that it could only be truth. It was something that would ever color a different shade to George's adventures and narrow escapes half a world away. The nights alone, in dangerous country, when odds seemed long and hope was astray, somehow Tom Branson knew that boy had never been truly alone, even if he would never know she was there.</p><p>"Uncle Tom, I swear, I'll get her back."</p><p>It was more than a trust in a nephew's abilities, or the face of a lost love that he could not unsee … It was the voice, her voice, that spoke through the young man, as if she was right there, assuring him.</p><p>"Will you?"</p><p>Something dark - un-Sybil like – flashed in George's manner at the doubting voice that called to him. When he turned Mary once more strode forward in challenge. There was a stoic flatness that was as cold as the ice in her blood. But the hardness in her seemed only a front, a veneer, for it was too brittle to be anything else. Lady Mary Crawley was afraid, truly afraid. She had stood in this manor before and felt what it was for something to take a daughter from her and be powerless to do anything. And just like it was before, it was George whose hands held the very life of one of her little girls.</p><p>But now, to bring such things up again, to once more doubt him, to throw a failure that defined his life back at him only awoke white hot flames of rage.</p><p>"You better hope I do …" the youth snarled quietly, the shadows seeming to gather around him as the mood turned in the room. "Or Anna's gonna be opening bottles for you till the end of time." He threatened darkly.</p><p>Mary did not budge when George stalked up to her angrily. He was not towering over his equally statuesque mama, but he cut quite the intimidating figure as he loomed. It was a blunt message that if Lady Mary wanted to lob cruel words and other such insults that any man might have been killed for in a duel for uttering. Then, she would have to say them, not to a small boy that she had always dwarfed in the past, but a man grown whose chivalrous personal code of honor excluded Lady Mary Crawley.</p><p>For a long and tense beat they locked eyes, dueling and flashing like fencing sabers. But eventually George stepped away, once, twice, then, with a flutter of leather catching air, he whirled and began to stalk to where Thomas waited. It wasn't till she heard the receding steps of the two men go down the servant's staircase quickly that Mary let go of her breath. As usual, she showed her frustration with a hammer of a clenched fist into the air by her side. She immediately jerked her head away, shielding her eyes with her black silk covered hand in self-chastisement.</p><p>In truth it was not blame nor faithlessness that Mary confronted her son. It was simply some primal memory, instinct, to rectify a grievous mistake. She had once put an overburdening task on the shoulders of a small boy and watched him crumble and break under the pressure. This time, she did not wish for that to happen. Deep down, ringing clearly, yet, so alien, was Mary's desire for her boy not to shoulder all the responsibility this time. It was in the fiery passion to protect him that she spoke out. Yet, unfortunately, what could be mustered from the cold beauty was an incomplete and doubtful phrase that was easily misconstrued.</p><p>They both were on the same wavelength, on the same page, but had two different readings. Ten years of resentment and bitter hate had muddied the waters. Mary might not have ever blamed George, no matter what, for what happened to Caroline … but she also never admitted such a thing to him either. It was her belief that if she made him believe it enough, continuously, he would stay away. Only then, could Mary never hurt him, intentionally or unintentionally, ever again. But under such a deep feint of deception, she had cultivated an obsessive behavior of many tormented nights in which one morning replayed in a young boy turned man's head, clouds of a special seaweed pipe leaf helping him pour over old details of that morning in search of absolutions and solutions. And in those long years of mania he had learned to hate the woman who seemed merciless in her cold and impersonal persecution. Being the object of her vendetta for revenge, the many arguments that he had in his mind a million times, all of that would've been preferable than the reality of the many years in which Lady Mary acted as if he simply didn't exist at all.</p><p>And, but once more, did Mary torment herself by so terribly botching another moment of true maternal concern for a son she could no more stop loving than cut off the very hand he threatened to take from her.</p><p>"George!"</p><p>Butler and Master were on the first landing of the descent when they paused. Whipping around they found their quickened paces being trailed by a fluttering wave of pearly silk and gold. Racing down the steps from the Grand Hall was a slim and delicate vision of ethereal beauty that seemed to shimmer even in the dim passage. Marigold's jewelry sparkled as she passed the overhead light, the gold of her tresses gleaming in the dark as if lit by the luminous rays of a soul. Her movements were precise, controlled, fluid as her silver high heels clicked on the steps. There was no wasted energy in her graceful stride. Even to watch her do the mundane seemed some moving work of art, hypnotizing as to enrapture both men as she came storming down the stairs.</p><p>"George!"</p><p>The way her voice uttered his name was heavy, like a locked chest that hid some secret trove of great meaning. Yet, Thomas could hear the weight, feel the ghosts of the vibrations that spoke of something more there. The name in the beautiful creature's soft voice was like the imprinted outline of an object removed from a shelf of prominence and locked away in a secret and hidden safe. And when the young man heard it, from the girl's own lips to his ears, he stopped, ready to drop everything at its whim. Marigold did not stop, even as she neared the landing. Thomas watched as she skipped the final steps and launched herself gracefully at the young captain. He immediately caught her in his arms as she clung to him. But immediately, she stepped away and began to make noises.</p><p>"I, I, I … please, please … I, can't, George please! Not without her, I …" She sobbed in fear.</p><p>The Butler watched his golden Ms. Marigold shake her head, consumed by a powerful and unintelligible attack of manic anxiety. The girl looked nearly broken, her hands gripping his jacket, her face buried into his chest. His heart nearly broke at the desperate display of grief and fear that overwhelmed the beautiful ballerina that Thomas would never not see as that perfect, quiet, and sweet little girl who would have a biscuit on his knee as he read the paper before the children's bedtime. The man, lonely, without hope, cherished those children then, and hadn't stopped. Out of all of them, Ms. Marigold was the most sensitive. When Sybbie cried, she cried. When George was chastised, she took half of it upon herself as to mitigate the weight on the boy. And when someone was to be punished, the girl followed them, so they would not be alone. The nannies used to complain to Thomas that her softness and over sensitiveness was undermining their ability to properly discipline Ms. Sybbie. While Anna brought stories from Crawley House of Lady Merton forbidding George from going out for some infraction breached. Yet, still, there was Ms. Marigold sitting outside the door, waiting, till Isobel finally amended her rule that George could not see anyone … except for Marigold.</p><p>If anyone had asked the butler of Downton Abbey what he thought – Which he would note no one ever did - Thomas Barrow would pull up a chair and tell them that Marigold Crawley was the greatest ballerina there ever was for exactly those reasons. The secret to her success was simply that the girl's empathy for others was strong. She knew how the notes went, how to move to them, because, she knew how they were supposed to feel, how the writer felt when he wrote them, and she felt it too. The girl was a conduit between music and movement which reached a medium of pure poetry and bliss. There was never a false movement or guarded emotion in the elven fair maiden with a heart as golden as her hair. It was why Thomas saw so clearly what perhaps he had known all their young lives …</p><p>And it broke his heart to realize it.</p><p>When George reached out and cupped Marigold's fair cheeks and looked into her eyes, quietly shushing her, the butler realized that it was not the first time that the young captain had done so. But in his feather grasp and sparking eyes there was nothing familial about the way that he looked upon the ballerina. Nor was there a sibling like need in the girl's grasp and desperation in her touch. And when they came together there was a melding of chemistry that was so potent that everything, from the dim light of the passage, to the stray emotion, seemed to orbit the gravity of their coming together. There was longing, need, and an old comfort that seemed lifelong, a part of who they were. No one knew how long it had been there, how long it had been since they realized what these long-held feelings had really meant. But one needed only a quick glance to sense the purity of it, of the sincerity in this beautiful love affair that was impossible. Fore when George and Marigold came together, Thomas could see that the potency came on so powerfully, because, it had been a long time since they had touched one another. Not since Fort Worth near a year passed.</p><p>Not since a ragged young adventurer waited under a street clock outside a jewelry store on a snowy evening, planning to propose to a girl he had loved all his life. Yet, when she came to him, it was to inform him that she could not see him again. It was then, with great pain, tears welling in her eyes, the she told him of the secret their Aunt Edith had been keeping all her life, a secret she revealed to her earlier that day in their suite at the "Hotel Texas". Then, denying accusations of her true mama being a liar and rebuffing offers for them to run away together, the beautiful ballerina shared one last teary kiss with her true love and left him forlorn on the streets of Downtown Fort Worth to make his way back to "The Stock Yards" in the sleeting rain.</p><p>Since then, he had returned to New Orleans, traveled by foot across America to get to Levinson Manor in Newport. He fought alongside his Science Pirate mentor on several adventures before returning home after eight years to free his family from the clutches of evil men. And in all of that time, they had not been alone together, had not spoken, only sharing longing and languished private glances across crowded rooms of their now shared family's homes. Yet, in a moment of crisis, in a storm of crippling anxiety and fear Marigold Crawley thought of nowhere else to seek comfort and assurance than in the arms that Marigold Drewe would never think twice of running into.</p><p>"I need her … please, don't … don't let her … she's all I have." Marigold begged, gripping George's jacket in a wash of tears. "Since you've been gone, I can't, I can't lose her." She shook her head.</p><p>When George turned and saw Thomas standing there, he paused. It seemed foolish to play coy, or deny it, when he saw it in his oldest friend's expression. It was wordless, but it was confirmed in a glance. Yet, still, with a nod, he asked for a moment of privacy in this agony he had to contend with. And the man whose own secret dalliance was helped perpetrated and unspokenly sanctioned by the young man who enabled the two lovers to have regular overlap in their day to day, said not a word.</p><p>There was only a shared melancholy in a slight nod as the butler descended the steps alone.</p><hr/><p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>Entr'acte Music</strong>
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  <em>"Johnny's Story" - Leo Birenberg &amp; Zach Robinson</em>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Editorial Note</p><p>At the risk of tainting my integrity as an artist (whatever that means), I just wanted to make something a bit clearer. I'm sure its a bit off putting by George being unusually aggressive, especially toward Mary in a physical sense. But I just want to point out that in the timeline of the story series this takes place a couple of months since George has been home. So, keep in mind that he is, one: a Teenage Boy dealing with hormones and a lot of demons, and Two: Still a bit feral from going from Depression America and the wastelands to being in the orbit of the pinnacle of British Aristocratic Luxury. Also, in times of crisis, I feel its consistent that he's rather foul mouthed and grouchy with everyone.</p><p>If you don't like it, hey, you don't like it. But what can I tell you?</p><p>Other than that ... Enjoy this overlong Cold Opening Prologue to the climax of a George &amp; Sybbie adventure.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Prologue: Presto! DOUBLE CROSS! - Part III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a disclaimer, this, like the Downton Abbey series itself, is set in an alternative history. As it will be obvious to any British or Commonwealth reader, I don’t know much about the English Monarchy’s powers or what the rules are for peerage. My understanding of this feudalistic hierarchy comes from Medieval History, Dune, and Game of Thrones … can you tell? </p><p>Also, as you can tell, this story is a bit rougher than Downton Abbey. In particular, sex abuse and pedophilia is something that has run rampant through the British Upper classes for centuries and is very well documented, including several big scandals in the 20’s, 30’s, 50’s, Late-80’s, and very recently. Unlike Fellowes, the story series, and in particular, this story, will deal with the reality of the British Aristocracy of the late-1930s which was not unpopulated with deviant predators and full support for the Nazi Party’s policies.</p><p>Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to ignore what I and you probably love about the show. But I feel that I can’t ignore the historical realities of Pre-WWII Upper-class England that the show probably wouldn’t want to deal with.<br/>If any of this bothers you going forward, I can’t help you. </p><p>We’re all adults here … hopefully.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>It was an outrage of the highest order!</p><p>No one could believe that it had come to this. The law, in the infinite wisdom of a lack of foresight, really had no precedent for the matter in hand. Of course, it seemed a typical "he said, she said" which generally took place in a hearing in front of a court of law. A judge presiding and giving a ruling on the matter, then it would either go to court or it wouldn't. It was simple British Imperial Justice, envy of the world. But the matter seemed entirely confused when the accuser was in the hospital, half her body covered in mutilating third-degree burns. And the defendant in question was merely a boy, not yet a tweeny. But the case was even more complicated a matter, because, there was no guilty verdict to be had.</p><p>The defendant in question, in fact, fully admitted to pushing a woman in her late fifties into a boiling bathtub of bleach. His argument wasn't even self-defense, fore he had broken into private property. To this, many would say that the argument was a moot point. The boy in question had broken into not just a house, but a castle of great importance and governance, assaulted its staff, and had brutally disfigured a member of the noble family that lived there. To anyone in the world, that seemed like no better reason to lock the boy up.</p><p>But there were questions that called much into uncertainty of the simplicity of the case. The first question: why would the boy break into Brancaster Castle? If you asked the Lord and Lady, they'd say it impossible. The boy in question was always welcome there, he could come and go at his leisure. Lady Hexham even going as far as wishing he'd come and live with her. If he was accused of breaking and entering, the charges would be falsely filed. The second question: Why was there boiling bleach in the guest bathroom in the first place? To that, no one could say. The staff of Brancaster seemed at a loss of words when questioned. The Royal Detectives and the Chief Inspector had their doubts that Lord and Lady Hexham's staff had no idea about the boiling vat of chemicals. Surely, they knew why they did it and to who's orders it was commissioned. But still they toed the unified line of this person gave an order and that person called it in, till it seemed even the scullery maid had a hand in giving messages. And the final question: What's the motive? Anyone would tell you that the accuser and the defendant did not like one another. They would dare to say that the boy did not like most titled women over the age of forty-eight. And the accuser had always thought the boy a very, very, bad influence on her son and daughters-in-law's angelic ward.</p><p>Yet, the investigators would be willing to give the benefit of doubt if the whole story wasn't so incredibly far-fetched, so impossible and horrifying. It was the boy's side of the story that seemed so outlandish to even the most hardened sensibilities of veteran law enforcement. The evidence was there, the timetable was there, but the story of what happened was something they couldn't get their head around. With speed, smuggling on the last train out of Downton Station, a young boy snuck past armed guards and onto the vast estate under cover of stormy night. There, he found that Mrs. Mirada Pelham, mother of the Marquess of Hexham, was attempting to dunk her son and his wife's ward into a bathtub of boiling bleach to cleanse the golden-haired angel of her sinful taint and restore her purity. The very thought of such a thing chilled the Royal Investigators to their very bones. To think it was possible that a woman such as Mirada Pelham, a vocal crusader for morality, was capable of such barbarous acts. But when questioned why she would do such a thing; they were flat out, top down, horrified.</p><p>It was the boy's account for the reason that Marigold Drewe was nearly boiled alive in a chemical bath was because she saw something she shouldn't have. That an innocent and perfect little girl, frightened of the violent storm, had walked into her best friend's guest room, the niece of Lady Hexham, seeking comfort and shelter in her 'sister's' arms. But when she entered Ms. Sybbie Branson's room, in a flash of lightning, she saw Mirada Pelham … doing something a grown woman shouldn't to a young girl. Marigold, frightened and horrified to see her best friend, her sister in all but blood, splayed on the bed with her own "Granny M" doing … what she was doing as her victim mewled and looked away from it in shame. In that moment the little girl fled, she ran fast, outpacing the castle butler who was supposed to have been keeping watch for his "Mistress".</p><p>Little Marigold ran all the way to the phone. And it was there that she called her other best friend. He was a boy she loved so much that she could not think of anyone else to call upon to save her and their sister. And when Mirada Pelham was too late to stop her step-granddaughter's private emergency signal, George Crawley, armed with exotic weapons … came.</p><p>"<em>Did some fine work here, he did."</em> As the constables said.</p><p>The boy had cleaved through the staff of the castle like cutting a cake. Three footmen had serious injuries, including traumatic concussions from a guerilla style ambush in Brancaster's Painted Hall and other such places as they walked patrol down the haunted corridors. The Sergeant-At-Arms of the Hexham Estate broke his leg in two places when he fell over the railing after being struck between the eyes by a smooth volcanic rock flung from the shadows by a Samoan native sling. But the Butler of Brancaster had it the worst of all the staff. Mirada Pelham's lookout and co-conspirator had his kneecap shattered with an iron fire poker and his laborious gut had been beaten to near catastrophic bruising. It was clear that the stories had been true about George Crawley. He was, indeed, highly trained in matters of swordsmanship, stealth combat, and a myriad of other disciplines covered under the arts of altogether "ungentlemanly warfare". There was an air of "The Thugee" about his tactics and training that made some of the older men nervous.</p><p>It was then, in the eleventh hour, just as Mirada carried a terrified and begging Marigold into the bathroom like a holy sacrifice, the boy leapt upon the woman. The two grappled in furious battle then, like a hunting hound against a mad dog. They used nails, fists, and teeth as they fought savagely over the sobbing little girl in question that hid in Sybbie's protective arms. Poor Marigold cradled bloody fingers whose nails were torn off from gripping doorways and wall corners as Mirada ripped her down the hall. She lay across Sybbie's half-naked body, unable to sit, after Mrs. Pelham had lifted the girl's nightgown and gave her cruel spankings on her bare bottom till Marigold let go of the obstructions she clung too in protest. But eventually, all wounds were avenged when George finally brought an end to their fight over Marigold and Sybbie. Lowering his shoulder, the trained fighter rammed the old woman's thighs, forcing her onto bleach slickened tile. There she slipped into her own boiling chemical bath.</p><p>Taking both girls away, it was the next morning that they found the three of them together at Crawley House. When their parents and guardians came upon them, the two girls were snuggled together in George Crawley's bed. They both looked like beaten and traumatized kittens as the two girls lay atop one another, wide awake, haunted and traumatized in their quiet cuddling. Meanwhile, their rescuer sat in his father's leather chair pulled up by his bed. Bloody scratches on his cheek, George quietly sharpened a Rajput sword while sitting in protective vigil by the girls he loved most. It was there that their family saw that Ms. Marigold Drewe and Ms. Sybil Branson, two of the most beautiful and perfect girls in the whole Imperium, had been utterly broken.</p><p>But the question remained how could someone do something like that to young girls? One girl molested for months, right under her father and 'mama's' noses. A girl bribed with jewels and finery if she didn't tell anyone. A girl who suffered in silence, afraid that if she refused the old woman's lecherous advances that she would go after Marigold in her stead. When they met young Ms. Sybil, she was as pretty as the finest dolly, but flinched at all mature female presence that wasn't Lady Grantham, her granny. The other girl was healing physically but not mentally. When the Royal Investigators came to talk to Lady Edith, they found her little ballerina unable to sit, for her fanny had been beaten raw. Her fingers were bandaged, covered in deep gashes. She was also terrified of bathtubs. The girl could only bath if Lady Edith got in with her, showing her that it was just warm water and soap. Then, Marigold would sob uncontrollably, clinging to her guardian, as her <em>Aunt</em> Edith bathed her, trying not to cry herself. It was then that one had to question how it was possible that someone so vile could do something like that to such lovely young roses not yet bloomed. The answer was simple, given from way up high in the chain of command … and it was that those investigators weren't paid to ask those questions. They were paid to make this go away, by royal decree.</p><p>After all, George Crawley was a rebel and a traitor … even if he told no word of a lie.</p><p>The truth was spoken plainly by the young heir to the House of Grantham. But the truth was also that the Aristocracy could not afford another scandal of such magnitude. Forever scarred by the death of his look-alike cousin and his family in Russia, the King and the Monarchists saw <em>red</em> in their periphery wherever they went. And with the worker strikes stoking fires in Yorkshire, they would not give the Northmen another reason to rise up. The idea of such perversions, such grotesquery from a leading voice of morality in the upper classes was unthinkable. But the Palace would've left it up to the Houses of Grantham and Hexham of how to handle such a matter, if their ear was not gained by others. Fore it was, in the chambers of the House of Lords, that there were some men who saw an opportunity in the making.</p><p>Ms. Sybbie Branson was a new and modern commodity to the British Imperium. An Heiress. The lovely young girl stood to gain an ever-expanding and booming motor fortune, which would be attractive enough in the next ten years. But what if they could sweeten the pot? What if, in addition to her immense beauty and her parent's lucrative motor trade, she also could come with the largest agricultural producer in the entirety of the great island kingdom? In the recent years, it had come to the attention of many in high places in government and society that the greater Grantham Estate produced numbers and profits only seen by Plantation owners in the Colonies.</p><p>George Crawley was the last heir to the House of Grantham. There was no other. If these men could- somehow- take the young Lord of Downton out, then the ancient House of Grantham, with all its titles, would become extinct. The Grantham Estate, then, would revert to its majority holder, Lady Mary Talbot. Thus, with her only son, George, out of the way, and a dependable 'expiration date' to Lord and Lady Grantham, the only viable successor of Lady Mary was her niece and adopted daughter Ms. Sybil Afton Branson. Indeed, there was an opportunity here to relieve the House of Grantham of their great burden of existence, and acquire a fortune beyond any Peer's wildest dreams, all in a beautiful and pearly silk marriage purse.</p><p>After all, no one of good character and sense in High Society even liked George Crawley. He may have been a boy of exceeding youth, but already he was an odd sort. The boy's curls were not long, but thick, shaggy, and mop like, which draped over his ears and covered the back of his neck. His dress was common and rugged, like that of a farmer or fisherman's son. The cloth of his clothing was of some strange making, with even stranger hieroglyphic adornments on his jacket sleeve. His speech was not of England, akin to something American like. On top of such a thing, the strange boy spoke half a dozen languages, including being known to utter Gaelic, in the open English street, like some uncouth barbarian. This, most deemed, had come from him being uncommonly and incredibly studious, steeped in strange knowledges and owner of even stranger texts of ancient and even pre-history that seemed unbelievable.</p><p>Those young children of the village who befriended him, often fell under such a spell, learning much of the world and speaking of strange tales and places of forgotten lore of the likes that many Lords and Ladies would say were not meant for their classes. Yet, the common people loved him so, even if they did find him a bit of an acquired taste with his adventuring and not wholly English ways. But to the British upper classes, those with a little more influence in places of governance, found him absolutely cracked. The House of Lords, in the least, knew of the boy's master, the old Sikh science pirate. And though his service to the Empire in the past had gained him peace, it was not bought nor borne with a great love between the Imperium and mysterious captain of the ocean fathoms. And of the old villain's hatred for the Royal House of Winsor, he taught heartily to his young apprentice. There were whispers from Princess Mary's own household of names such as "Hanoverian Tyrants" being slandered upon the Royal family by the young Viscount in open Republican sedition against the King Emperor and the Prince of Wales themselves.</p><p>It was these rumors that caused Edward, Prince of Wales, to whisper in his father's ear of the opportunity to smother in the crib any future dissidence from a boy that would grow into a powerful and charismatic leader of men. To their credit, the Royal House showed a much greater restraint than what Edward proposed. Princess Mary arguing fiercely against this plot of her elder brother and a few other Lords who lusted after a future heiress of surpassing beauty which would acquire much their heart hotly desired. But the King Emperor, none the less, saw the wisdom of cutting off a Republican head before it could grow into a foe. Thus, he gifted his decree to a son who bore a great hatred for a young adventurer who had humiliated him one too many times in Africa.</p><p>It was then that Lady Maude Bagshaw had been sent from the Palace to ensure that her family's heir understood the Royal terms, as did the Imperial Courts own Lord Leftenant.</p><p>It was a no-win scenario that had been handed down so callously. In fact, when Richard Ellis, newly promoted as dresser of the King, had asked his highness about it 'casually' before dinner, the old monarch couldn't quite remember the name of the chap the decree was addressed too. It was some enemy of the Prince, or other, he said before giving a gruff and distracted chuckle. <em>"Playing the odds, Ellis, playing the odds, you know."</em> It was clear, in that moment, that the entire episode, including his own daughter begging him not to placate to her brother's vanity, was forgotten so easily. Meanwhile, the queen simply said that their own family's peace was more important than some squabble in their Court between a minor Peer with an ancient title and the mother of a Marquess. She assured Maude that "Eddy" would lose interest in his current "White Wale", this Lord of Downton who made him a fool in Africa. And that Princess Mary was always fickle with her causes. But when Lady Bagshaw pointed out that Princess Mary's objections came that her brother's "White Wale", The Viscount of Downton Abbey, was a young boy, The Queen paused from her letter writing. "How terribly droll …" it was all she said before going back to what she was doing, forgetting the entire conversation already.</p><p>Now the choice was before young George Crawley. The King's terms were that the youth keep the story of the molestation of Sybbie and the attempted murder of Marigold to himself. That never again would he speak in public of such things. In the legal document, drafted by a Prince's bruised ego, and every word written by ambitious schemers, they laid out the contrary evidence to his claims that was not founded by any detective or medical expert. Furthermore, as Royal Decree, if the boy did not sign the contract or breached it in anyway, he would have all his titles and lands stripped from his person and condemned to an Asylum as a creditable threat to Sybbie and Marigold's well-being. The threat alone was made wholly more dangerous by stating that it would not be just any Asylum, but "<em><strong>Carfax Asylum"</strong></em>, the Imperial Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane. There, in those desiccated and diseased walls, was housed the madness of three hundred years of the worst Criminals from every corner of the Imperium. And by the King Emperor's signature, it was made clear that the House of Winsor had no reservations of throwing the young boy in the deepest and darkest cell in one of the worst 'madhouses' in the entire world, perhaps on par with "The Mission" in Saltillo Mexico.</p><p>The very thought of the boy in that rank darkness of evil terrified Ladies Hexham and Grantham. Lady Bagshaw had agonized over it for a week. While Lucy had such terrible nightmares, unable to bring herself to tell Tom Branson, her lover, the fate that could await his beloved nephew with the face of his lost wife. It seemed that the only person yet to be daunted by the prospect of being locked away in one of the worst criminal asylums in the world was George himself. The boy was forthright, steadfast, and valiant to the last. He did not cow to threats from a "fat and empty-headed doddering old man" nor his 'foppish princeling' who cries during sex. How he knew that about Prince Edward no one was sure. But the Princess, in the least, as usual, found the young adventurer's candor and unassailable courage enamoringly admirable.</p><p>But still, in response to royal provocation and threat, the boy instead decided to wage war upon Prince Edward and the Royal Family. The rumor in London some days after the Royal Decree was forced upon George was that of a mysterious swordsman, disguised and cloaked, broke into the Queen's own treasure room. Stolen from inside had been a rare and one of a kind Indian jewel upon a crystal necklace. The young figure then fought his way out of the palace, taking wounds, but still escaping the Royal Guards with the stolen bounty. The King Emperor was incensed, in a fury, when he found out that the priceless and venerable Indian Jewel had been stolen from his very roof. The heirloom had been a part of the Royal House of Hanover for over a century, taken from a wealthy Maharaja during the East India Company's invasion of his Kingdom in the late 1790's. It was a treasure of sentimental value, in particular, fore it was a favorite of Queen Victoria's in her youth and many portraits of personal family nature were painted with her donning the necklace.</p><p>Now it was stolen from the palace itself, taken by a bold rogue carrying a traditional Sikh saber to which he fought off the guards with. It was a slap in the face to the Royal House of Winsor, a knifing humiliation so close to home. They say that they knew that it had been George Crawley, because, the jewel itself had once belonged to the wife of a certain Science Pirate, who was a powerful and beloved prince of men in another life. But most telling was in that very morning, when Prince Edward awoke to find a dagger stabbed into his nightstand. There pinned was a note of warning that should the mysterious swordsman ever encounter the Prince of Wales again, his life would be forfeit.</p><p>It was in that time that Prince Edward, now chiefest of adversaries to George "The Comet" Crawley, convinced the King for the need of swift retribution for the insult done to their family by the theft of Queen Victoria's own necklace. And, in his rage, enflamed by the humiliation of the theft, the man who strived to be the antitheses of his father - "Tum-Tum" - was mastered by emotions. He ordered the immediate arrest warrant for the boy and summarily sentenced him to imprisonment at Carfax Asylum.</p><p>But when the local Dragoons Regiment, who had once paraded down these same streets of Downton at the Royal visit, attempted to arrive the same way, they found themselves blocked. Outside the Village of Downton, they encountered an armed company of tenants and villagers. They all outright refused to allow them to take the young master. The soldiers were turned away, as more denizens of the county arrived to defend young George, whose loyalty he had earned. With no other choice, pressured by his own men, Lord Grantham, with greatest reluctance, ordered the mustering of the county levies in defense of his heir.</p><p>To this matter, Bertie Pelham and Hugh McClare, Marquises of Hexham and Flintshire, tampered tensions by arguing that Royal intervention in this must be taken up in "The House of Lords" as stated in the "Magna Carta". Therefore, any action taken against the Lord of Downton by the King Emperor on any basis outside legality must be supported by 2/3rds of a Lords Convention, least this be a grievous overstepping of Monarchial power. It seemed a victory was in hand, fore the Crown had no proof of George's crime to prosecute, nor could the King resend titles and lands without legal basis.</p><p>To this Prince Edward was outraged to find a less than warm welcome from many of the Lords at the convention. Though they did not like George Crawley, they all would be fools to surrender their rights to the Windsor family's whims, least they offend the Royal House in the future and have no recourse against their prejudice. Seeing the coming of a costly and humiliating political defeat, another plan was hatched in the bowels of Buckingham Palace.</p><p>Though till this day, no one was sure who it was that gave the order, whither it was Prince Edward, or even The King himself …</p><p>It came by train and sorted through mail to be sent by messenger on motorbike. It was a handwritten letter by the King Emperor himself. In it contained the self-invitation to Grantham House in London where he, the Queen, Princess Mary, and even the Prince of Wales himself, wished to discuss some sort of truce. It was vetted by Lady Bagshaw, with assurances that this was genuine. Both Bertie and Edith also came with tidings that things were quite finished in the House of Lords. It was with optimism, that Lord and Lady Grantham considered that with a political defeat looming, that the Royal Family might mitigate the damage to the Prince's reputation by negotiating some sort of peace. This was seconded by Lady Bagshaw and confirmed by Shrimpie Flintshire. And thus, the family departed quietly to Grantham House in London, leaving no word to their men of the machinations that they would attend too.</p><p>When it was later revealed that Lady Grantham was hosting a dinner party for the Royal Family on that fateful night, the reputations of the elder two generations of the Crawley family would never recover.</p><p>Yet, there, in the lavished glamour of a court dinner, The Prince of Wales, of course, spoke of a genuine truce. The King led discussions with Lords Grantham and Hexham of how to make everyone happy. There was no short of elation when the King and Prince signed a document binding the House of Grantham's claims to the Land exclusively for all time. While Lord Grantham conceded that perhaps young George would do well to see more of the world with his seafaring pirate for a few months till things blew over. Then, with a feast for all time, there was merry making in the peace that was found. By the balance of the evening, one might dare say, with Lord Grantham's best wine and Mrs. Patmore's superb cooking, that it was a magical event in the making.</p><p>The queen conferred with Lady Grantham, Lady Hexham, and Lady Mary about the future. It was her liking of interest in taking on the mother and daughters as her new companions, while letting Lady Bagshaw and Lucy retire to order their new lives at Brampton as mother and daughter. In this, as the queen's new companions, she spoke about what sort of honors they might bestow upon young Ms. Marigold, to better her future. But mostly the discussion turned to what they could do for beautiful Ms. Sybbie who sat beaming at her grandfather's table, the center of attention at a royal banquet.</p><p>That night Lady Mary took a long-relieved breath now that they were assured that George was no longer in danger. Then, for a time, watching Sybbie sleep in Mary's bed in the vanity mirror - both Anna and the girl's mama smiling at how their girl had worn herself out from the excitement of being a part of a royal dinner - Mary confided to Anna. It was now with a deep and soul crushing shame and sorrow that she bitterly repented for what she had said to George about his birth and Matthew. Before being bidden goodnight, the great lady, not for the first time, told her lady's maid and best friend that this night had strengthen her resolve to make amends with her son. That when they returned to Downton that Mary would do all in her power to be his mama once more.</p><p>But at the very time that they feasted in London, the fires burned low in the hearths of the Village of Downton. The watch set by the local levies was relaxed, assured that "The House of Lords" would come down on their side. Then, suddenly, out of the night, they came like a torrent of Saxon Raiders from the sea. They wore black Colonial Indian uniforms, their faces were painted thickly with shoe polish, and they wore matching berets with the white horse of the Hanoverian Crest upon the Red Rose of Lancaster. In their hands were German Mauser Rifles topped with bayonets that glinted and gleamed in the moonlight.</p><p>Ranks upon ranks of these mysterious foes charged into the village of Downton, killing at will, shooting any man they could find, combatant or not. Bells rang in the village and horns cried in alarm rolling down the stone streets in sequence. Out into the cold, half-dressed and confused, men of the county grabbed what they could to defend themselves. Thus, taken unawares and by shock, there was fighting and much killing in the streets of Downton that night. Meanwhile, countless foes in a tide of black began to ransack houses and businesses, stealing armfuls of food and finery, raping women and girls they cornered in the street, and setting fire to the residences of the old village.</p><p>Forever in a black stain upon the British Royal family would that night be known as the "Grantham County Massacre".</p><p>The warning horns had awoken George Crawley at a start from his hiding place in Mrs. Patmore's Bed and Breakfast. Quickly, ignoring the frightened protests of his family's cook's niece, George armed himself and ran to see what was happening. There he found the old village afire. There were men dead in the streets. Many were in strange uniform, but many more were tenants and farmers … his men.</p><p>The village children took refuge in Crawley House, it's walls a natural defense against the onslaught. Though, curiously, there was no push to overrun the house, occupied by Lord and Lady Merton … as if their foe had known that their 'Wolf's Head' was not at home. Later, when it was found that the local gentry were untouched, there came a deeper resentment under the tightening grip of Lady Mary's reign in the years that followed. But for then, gathering forth those who heeded his call, carrying himself in a manner that would've made Matthew Crawley's heart glow, George rallied and held together the men.</p><p>With desperation, their young captain - ignoring the cries for their lord to save himself - led the hardiest to Downton Abbey to draw their mysterious foes from the women and his fellow children.</p><p>The night in London had passed uneventfully. The house had slept heavier than usual as the stress and worry were expelled in relief. Mary snuggled tightly with Sybbie, Lord and Lady Grantham held hands all through sleep, and Tom spent his first night with Lucy Smith. But it was Edith who awoke with a startle. When Bertie asked what it was, she said that she had dreamt of Sybil. She was in her nurse's uniform and tears were streaming down her face. She was illuminated by the burning of their village church as she dragged a wounded George through a graveyard. As she awoke, Sybil had cradled him behind her own crypt as men in strange foreign uniforms hunted for them. She was rocking the unconscious boy back and forth in her arms, begging for someone to wake up.</p><p>She hadn't finished her story before there was a soft rapping at their door. Then, with a look as pale as the moon, Tom Branson entered and said only Edith's name. It was a question of if she had received a similar dream. Then, behind Tom, there came Mary. She was confused and yet haunted by the vision of their little sister, long passed. And finally, with a piercing scream that awoke the house, they heard Sybbie cry out. Her aunt, uncle, daddy and mama rushed to get to her. There, in Mary's bed, the girl was crying. <em>"Don't let them get him! Run Mummy, run!"</em> She sobbed. But when Tom and Mary woke her, she buried her face into Tom's chest crying. Through sobs she exclaimed in panic that they were going to kill George. But before they could dispel her of the false reality of her night terror …</p><p>There came a terribly dreadful pounding on the front door of Grantham House.</p><p>Mostly unrobbed, much of the adults, Mary, Edith, and Bertie joined Lord Grantham down the steps in their nightwear. It was then that they found Thomas, the butler, white as a sheet, sitting upon a parlor chair. His face was shocked, frozen in terror. It was then that they found Richard Ellis, the King's own Valet standing in the foyer by Thomas. The man was uniformed like the foes in Tom and the Crawley Sister's dreams. His face was stained with shoe polish. And in his hand was a matching beret with the white stallion of Hanover on a field of the Lancaster's red rose. They saw, immediately, that the man of trust in the Winsor household had old blood upon his fatigues and cheeks. His eyes were small and traumatized, tears cleaned streaks over the black scoring, polish, and blood on his face. When he saw Lady Grantham push her way through her family, she was met with a sputtered sob of crushing guilt that would kill even the mightiest of men's souls.</p><p>No one needed to be told that morning what had happened. Edith placed her hand over her mouth first. Then, Bertie gripped the banister of the iron staircase in shocked fury. Lord Grantham seemed to be lost in a fog, his eyes wide in betrayal. Yet, Lady Mary Talbot's face remained unchanged, yet something cold and terrible came over her that morning, and it had not thawed since. She watched unemotionally as, with a sob, Richard Ellis fell to his knees in front of Lord and Lady Grantham and bowed his head. It was an offering of his life in recompence for the ill done to their house, to which – to his everlasting shame – he had been party to that terrible night. It was then, unseen by everyone, that Mary lifted the hem of her long silken nightgown and soundlessly paced back up the stairs from whence she came.</p><p>It was in the mid-morning when Lord Grantham, Lord Hexham, and Tom Branson arrived back at Downton Station from London. The place was deserted. Bertie had found the manager shot in the head and his handlers bayonetted, all of their bodies had been piled in the ticket booth. By the time that Lord Grantham and his son's in-law arrived, the foe had long since absconded, leaving no trace. The surprisingly many bodies of their fallen enemy had been cleared away, along with much of Downton's spoils. The fires were still blazing, though starting to burn out, fore there was no Fire Brigade to put them out. As the three men walked the street of the village, they found no short of bodies of every age, sex, and condition. Boys as young as eight and women as old as seventy. As they passed, they found sisters and mothers crying over them, cradling their cold faces in the open stone streets. Some of those women and girls wore torn nightgowns or were all together naked. Most had been freshly violated.</p><p>At the tree in the center of town, by Archie Philpot's memorial, bodies were hung. They had been the schoolmaster, the Fire Chief, and the Sheriff. For a moment, Lord Grantham was afraid that old Mr. Moseley would be among them, but he thanked Christ for small miracles that day. Tom Branson found Mr. Bakewell among his mostly looted groceries, a bloody hammer still in hand, despite stabbed many times. The entirety of the original medieval village founded by the first Lord of Grantham from Roman ruins was decimated. All the old residences and stores were afire or ransacked.</p><p>Yet, Crawley House remained untouched, and it was there that Lady Merton set up a triage for the villagers, though there were few wounded among the piles of dead. All that Isobel would say to the three men was that the enemy had spent the better part of the morning bayonetting the wounded and lame on the street, that was when they could be torn away from the women. They had not accosted Crawley House, but they had besieged it by roof tops and behind walls, shooting any who tried to find sanctuary within. Isobel recalled hearing their laughter, the calling out of whose point it was after shooting a villager, as if it were a game. Just a game. She did not call these foreign mercenaries' soldiers, nor even men, to her they were beasts that had been set upon them, their leashes untethered to delight in their cruelties. They had even burned the church … they had even dug up the graveyard.</p><p>Isobel would never forget the cry of anguish from Tom that she heard from her surgery in the sitting room. Fore when the Irishmen heard that they had dug up the graveyard, he immediately flew from Crawley House. Bertie nor Lord Grantham knew why at first, till, with a great and terrible pain, did Lord Grantham see it himself. All of his forefathers, every Earl of Grantham before him and Lord of Downton since Lady Margaret Pole had regifted the land to her beloved grandson. All of Lord Grantham's ancestors' crypts and graves had been broken into … but that was not the worst of it.</p><p>He nearly collapsed when he found Tom sobbing at the foot of Sybil's crypt, in his clutches was her tattered burial dress. Robert wanted to die when he saw his little girl's grave desecrated, smashed open, and her skeleton stripped. Her bones were flung across the weeds and over the wall onto Crawley House's property. The same cruelty had been shown to his dear boy. Matthew Crawley's grave had also been disturbed. His obelisk memorial had taken a few hard cracks from a sludge hammer, and a hole had been dug at the foot. Bertie and Robert found that Lady Mary's beloved's skull had been taken from his casket. But as to why was not so clear at first …</p><p>Till they went to Downton Abbey.</p><p>On the gravel pathway that led to the front doors of the castle, evenly spaced, were pikes hammered into yard. On each spear on the side of the path was impaled the skull of a Lord of Grantham from the 16th Century all the way to Robert Crawley's own father. He paused in front of it for some time, unsure of the emotion he felt upon seeing the face of the monstrous man he hated and yet could not escape. But the cruelest of these theatrics was alongside the entrance of Downton Abbey. There, on either side of the front steps was Lady Sybil and Matthew's skulls fastened to ornate poles in mockery. The gravel slushed in the cold morning as Tom Branson was crushed to his knees in dismay at the sight of what they had done to Sybil, his love.</p><p>There was blood and bullet casings everywhere on the manicured lawn. It was here that the hardiest men of the County had made their last stand against the foe. Held together by their young but valiant captain, they inflicted great losses on their enemy, enough to drive them back for a time. But it was clear what outcome had befallen the gritty veterans of the Somme and Amiens. Bullet holes riddled the ancient stone of the front of the manor, and many front bedroom windows were shattered from the inside were defenders used them as gun ports to fire down on their enemies. But in the end, they found the heavy doors of the Abbey smashed open, though it was accomplished with great loss to the enemy. But then, perhaps that was why their foes did what the three men saw. Fore, the Abbey's defenders' bodies were all piled in front of the entrance. There they were oiled and set aflame, the smoke and stench of the burning bodies whiffing purposefully into the manor, hoping to stain the foyer and great hall with their death for all time.</p><p>Leaving Tom and Robert to mourn all that ghoulishly decorated the front of Downton Abbey, Bertie Pelham had entered the manor itself. Inside he found even more blood, along with scorch marks on the front steps and entrance where Bertie assumed that their valiant chaps had tossed Molotov Cocktails of Lord Grantham's finest wine down on their bottlenecked enemies from the gallery above. Something told him that was a brainchild of his nephew's. But all the same, George's quick thinking did not hold back the storm of royal retribution. He observed much carbon scoring and bullet holes everywhere from the fighting. Also, Bertie found that his in-laws great house had been ransacked. Paintings, busts, and even furniture, had been stolen from the manor. Sundries and adornments, part of centuries old dowries had been taken or smashed by fighting and prejudice.</p><p>But all of these things would be noticed later, for much of the time Bertie was held in check in the foyer. There, his eyes glinted and flashed in shock and dismay that he could not withdraw from. He had been upon many battlefields and had seen the apex of human cruelty and mercy in conflict. But he seemed enraptured by the sight in front of him. Fore, at the center of Downton's Great Hall was the head of each fallen defender, piled neatly and orderly in a pyramid. It was left as a warning, not for the House of Grantham, but for its heir who had escaped the last stand …</p><p>To never again return.</p><p>Eight years later it took Chris Everman three rams of his shoulder to finally break open the door to the eastern wing that had been bolted shut. When he did, the movie producer was startled by the flutter and cry of a nested owl that circled him chaotically before it bolted through a shattered window. In its wake it left a steady flurry of pure white feathers that seemed suspended in the air like snowflakes on the late autumn breeze. But when the man turned back, he found that the girl in silvery blue evening gown and matching silk elbow gloves was still there. Her cerulean eyes gleaming in the dim shadowy corridor like lanterns.</p><p>Christ, she was beautiful.</p><p>Of course, both of the girls in the house were beautiful. But the older one was of the kind that you can imagine, the kind that was one in three, you know? She was above the curve, but in a reasonable manner. That other girl, the ballerina, she was different all together. There was something supernatural about both Ms. Branson and Ms. Crawley's beauty, sure. But the Blonde girl was other worldly, something else. To be crass, you could lust after Sybbie Branson, imagine what it would be like to have her. You simply couldn't do that with Marigold Crawley. It was like trying to imagine what it would be like with a goddess of some sort, plus all the baggage that came with something like that. And to be brutally honest, Chris Everman wasn't no damn mythical hero. If he was, he wouldn't have done half of the things that got him in this mess in the first place.</p><p>But, even with all that said, he had stopped holding the gun to Sybbie. In fact, she was following him now, almost as if she agreed to take him on a tour. He found that suspicious, but then, he wasn't stupid enough to think that his Staten Island charm was what did it. George Crawley and Sybbie Branson were a package deal, partners, and he knew that they were up to something. That was why he decided to go all the way down, not to the lit areas, the places that everyone would go. But, instead, he fled to the darkness, the abandoned halls that he imagined no one went anymore in a house like this.</p><p>But 'this' was not what he was expecting.</p><p>Beyond the bolted door he forced open was a true mess. The corridor of rooms and windows was absolutely demolished. The night's breeze whistled and howled through the broken and brittle gleaming edges of blunted glass shards that clung onto rotted sills. From the broken openings, like tentacles of a beast of the ocean fathoms, old ivy crawled up the side of the manor and wrapped the frames and mounted light fixtures. Spilling inside, the greenery crawled inch by inch across the tattered plush red carpet. Doors to guest bedrooms hung open by their corroded hinges or lay upon the dusty floor in ivy snares with military boot imprints. The corridor was covered in deep gashes and bullet holes. Sprays of old blood rusted on door frames and over the pocked and ruined walls. As they moved through the gruesome mess, they saw inside the rooms. They found mattresses lay overturned, and wardrobes hung open were a pair of disembodied aviary eyes watched them pass silently from inside.</p><p>After their initial exchange, and wandering only a few feet forward, he had turned to ask the story. He thought he'd be looking in on some closed off wing of a manor house that was in the middle of renovation. Perhaps he could find some sort of scaffolding ladder that they could climb down to the garage. He knew, as did everyone, that Ms. Sybil Branson was a wiz with cars. Perhaps, if she could lead him to the garage, she could get him to the train station and back to London …</p><p>Instead, what he found was a tomb.</p><p>"Christ, what happened here?"</p><p>"Me …"</p><p>"What?</p><p>"I'm what happened here."</p><p>"I don't get it."</p><p>"I'm the reason for this … for all of this."</p><p>"You … ahh, you did this?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>"Must have been one hell of a bad day, beautiful."</p><p>"The worst there ever was."</p><p>"I believe it."</p><p>Sybbie was trepidatious as she led the way through the old wing of the manor. It was strange, because, she remembered this place, remembered all of it, as it used to be. She knew the trees in brass pots that Albert used to water. When they were young, George, Marigold, and she used to play "Sun Hopscotch" in the afternoons. At someone's command – usually Sybbie's – they would hop between light and shadow when the sunlight would stream through the windows brightly. The clear duality between light and dark was in perfect contrast an hour before teatime.</p><p>If you went further down the hall there were lines of statues from Granny's trips to Italy when she was their age. They were Roman and Greek in origin. But George and Sybbie used to make up stories about who they each were, that was till George actually learned who they were and their real stories. Then, they would sit in the middle of the hall, Sybbie and Marigold enthralled as George told them the real tales of their mythology. The boy's stories from his lore mastery were always similar but different than what the books say, and all more entertaining and fantastic. She used to know the secret shortcut to get to her Aunt Edith's old room, then further down, was Granny's bed chamber and Donk's dressing room adjacent. But now all of it was forsaken, in tattered ruins. All the memories, all the little visits to guests like Uncle Bertie, Uncle Atticus, and even Henry before they all were married was on her mind.</p><p>But now she could hardly picture the golden hue to these sad and desiccated remains. Fore here, at the end, was where Downton's defenders long ago had made their final stand. Overrun at every point, they had attempted to get to Downton's roof. And here was where they had been cut off by the foe. Sybbie could only imagine what it must have been like to be in this place, trapped, pressed on all sides. There were few places in the corridor to be left up to the imagination for old sinew and pools of blood stained the floor and walls. The remains of that desperate and blood chilling melee remained in every gash, slash, and crater left in the very bones of this narrow space that led to the family's apartments or the roof and towers of the castle.</p><p>There had been a long stretch in which there was simply no funds to rebuild and repair the wing of the house. Donk had no choice but to close it off, redirect traffic to the family apartments elsewhere. Even Mama, upon her return from Buckingham Palace, could not find the funds or the heart to renovate the ruins. The damage from the fighting had been extensive and the blood had been caked on so thickly that they would need to replace the walls themselves. But sometime later, and for the first time in many years, it seemed that there was a possibility of the old wing being repaired and revived when George returned with a fortune's worth of treasures from his years of adventure.</p><p>As he was wont to do, the young man had gone alone into the wing and shut himself in. There, he stayed long into the night. They had been at dinner, when George finally reappeared, unlooked for, in the dining room. Wordlessly, he picked off their mama's plate as he stood at the table. Then, succinctly, he announced that he would not rebuild the old wing. When his judgement was met with dissent, he simply said that Lord and Lady Grantham had neither staff nor guests to justify the upkeep that it would cost George at expense. Yet, being someone who had loved George Crawley since before he was ever born, Sybbie knew that there was something else, another reason that he did not speak of. Then, curtly, he told their mama to collect her coat - they were leaving. She remembered their Donk's face growing scarlet as his heir and creditor denied his request and also flaunted the fact that Lady Mary, the once pride and tyrant of Downton Abbey, was now her own son's prisoner.</p><p>Yet, the strained civility of George's mood darkened when their Aunt Rose voiced the churlish nature of not allowing Mary to at least finish a meal they already started. Then, with cold anger, George questioned the table of finery how many families in the county had Lady Mary Crawley starved out of their homes? How many tenants were allowed to finish their porridge before they were thrown off their land by her tax collectors? His eyes flashed and daunted all at Lord Grantham's table. He asked sharply why should he show his mother any more or less courtesy than she had shown others less fortunate? Then, in the falling stab of temper, with a hardened voice, he once more informed his mama that they were leaving. It was then with humbled pride and quiet mortification that Lady Mary excused herself from the glamour of her father's table to be returned with her son to Crawley House, or "Elba" as the tenants nicknamed it during the initial stages of her captivity.</p><p>Sybbie, also a resident of the house, of her own free volition, left with them to spare their mama some matter of pride and sate their Donk's anger. It was later in bed when she questioned George about why he wouldn't restore the Chinese Room and other prestigious guest quarters. But the youth remained silent, staring up at the ceiling with his hands behind his head, lost in thought. It seemed an hour that they both stared at the glowing stars projected by a revolving mechanical astrolabe on his bedroom desk. But just when it seemed that the beautiful illusion and George's stroking hand was floating her to sleep, he spoke quietly.</p><p>"<em>It's occupied."</em></p><p>For a long time afterward, Sybbie had pondered what that had meant. Did he mean that there were birds that had nested too deeply in the ceilings and broken furniture? Had wood eating insects, crawling up the ivy, overtaken the sum of the parts of the old rooms? Or perhaps it was the memories? There were just too many memories of contrast in this place to ever again reclaim the old-world glamor and escapism of what once was here. Like the late afternoon sun, there was a conflict of light and dark in the very foundations. Yet, it only took a few minutes to realize just what George had truly meant as she and her captor waded through the darkness of the abandoned wing.</p><p>She felt it as a chill that went up her spine. Her pale and creamy exposed skin prickled in the cold grip of the exhaling phantasmal breath that swept through the hall. There an insufferable gloom fell over the spirits of the travelers through this exceedingly dreary plutonian tract of majestic ruins. The décor from the memories of brighter days of yore in the mind of the beautiful young heiress was but a fading sallow and drained echo of what once was fairest of all golden childhood memories. With every step they were exposed to some unseen well of gravity that weighed heavily upon the heart like an unknown malady whose diseased toxicity permeated the room and corridors. Glaring specters of fantastic terrors lay in the periphery of their sight as they walked boldly through the ruined hall. The grim and chilled atmosphere was all about them as their very breath, visible in the dim nightshade, seemed almost blasphemy.</p><p>"We should go back, Mr. Everman."</p><p>"Wha- why?"</p><p>"George is right, we shouldn't be here."</p><p>"Ah, relax, sweetheart …"</p><p>"Please."</p><p>"Why, so your kissing-cousin can tear me into tiny pieces? Huh? That it?!"</p><p>"You don't understand …"</p><p>"Shut up and keep moving, doll face!"</p><p>"Don't … don't brandish your gun."</p><p>"What, you scared I'm gonna shoot you?"</p><p>"Not of that."</p><p>"Oh, are you serious? I've been in theme parks scarier than this! Plus, isn't this part of your house?"</p><p>"Not anymore."</p><p>Chris Everman was a producer, not an actor, and he sure as hell wasn't gonna be winning any awards for playing a scene with Sybbie Branson. With all his might and mind, the man wanted to run for the hills from this place. He felt it in the air and tasted it in the dust. There was something wrong here, way wrong. A long time ago something bad happened, really bad. People died, a lot of them, in dark and horrible ways. He was reminded of the slaughterhouses of his youth, the factories he used to work in. Whether it was chickens or humans, one does not forget what death smelt like. It was iron and shit mixed together with the chaos of panic, anger, and fear. And these abandoned corridors were rank with it. Whatever had happened here, the old bones of the place had not forgotten it. For eight long years it was locked here, stewing in the awful energies of injustice, fear, and hatred till it was sick with it, till it warped and corrupted everything it touched.</p><p>But it wasn't just the wing that could easily - though inconveniently - be bypassed by the Downton staff and Grantham family. It was something that few have noticed, but surely it was there. And it was simply this: there was something wrong with Downton Abbey itself. No one had known for how long the dark had lain upon the old manor house. Perhaps since the sacking, or even before, when Lady Sybil and Matthew Crawley had died. But chief among those who had noticed it was its heir himself when he returned from long exile and adventures. The days in the sun lasted too short, the night too long, and the shadowy guard lingered tightly about the old stones. There was a sickness and malice in the grand house that spread deeply like a deathly cold in an elderly man's chest.</p><p>Downton Abbey was too old. It had spent too much time as a country palace, losing the ancient sanctity of the Priests and Monks that had once blessed it since the days of the Romans in Britannia. Now, the spirit of old had eroded away and something else had taken its place. It was a nameless fear that whispered through the halls. It's words pernicious and cynical, gaining the ear of the Lords of Grantham in the bitter and cold march of years. As the future unfolded, dimming the splendors of youth and glory, slowly and greedily did their love grow for the old stones and the many sundries of standing and history in Downton's halls. Drawn out and tormenting was the decay and uncertainty of their heart till they forgot the names of their sons and feared man's fated prostration to The Destroyer which ever haunted their minds. Then, when all joy in their coveted home was lost, when their heir was but a thief, and the store of goodwill had dried, they joined their voices to the chorus.</p><p>Long into the witching hours - as his family slept - had George Crawley stood in the center of Downton Abbey. With hands in his leather coat pockets and his eyes closed, quietly he listened to the black sermons that echoed softly with evil temptations and scathing black accusations. They were the dozens of cruel voices of mad and decrepit Lords of old. Long had their fear of death and jealousy of the past weaved into the walls that now cracked, tingled like too taut harp strings through the cobwebs that now clung to the banisters and light fixtures, and infected the many heirlooms fair with the sickness of their greed.</p><p>From the voices he heard words and verses from his childhood, spoken gallantly once. And in them, the house of Lord Grantham, Downton Abbey, was turned into something more than what it should've been. It was a third parent and extra child, an inescapable legacy that was wedded to the very name and title borne proudly … too proudly in George's estimation. They were flowery words spoken with honest integrity by Lords and Ladies, maids and loyal butlers, devoted to the house and their masters. But it was only the first symptom of a greater sickness that ended in madness and cruel suspicion of those they loved.</p><p>And it was here, in this unquiet tomb, stained with a great evil, that the cold hand of death's imprint and the selfish clinging to the last cordial drops of an idealized past clashed. It was not one thing in particular that inflicted the haunted path of hostage and captor, but many things that swirled, swarmed, and battled to create a singular and conflicted antagonist that filled the hall with hatred and fear. Their steps were daunted by a poltergeist that was almost elemental, their foe the very spirit of the house itself.</p><p>Never once did Sybbie or Everman see a translucent ghoul, nor hear the rattling chains of a Dicken's character. But the journey was a slow and tormented poisoning, brought on by heavy emotions that could not be quantified as they stepped over imprints of cold murder and resting places of the pitiless wounded trampled in a pressing massacre. It was with a shaky hand that the movie producer suddenly felt the need to obey Sybbie's request to put away his gun. Meanwhile, the girl had upon her cheek a single tear. Though it was not of fear that her heart was overcome.</p><p>Instead it was sorrow unlooked for in a moment of heartache of the great and meaningless loss. Here, where children played and love's young dream was kindled in hope, was now tainted by the very loss of innocence. It was the loss of the innocence of childhood, the loss of the purity of great love, and the loss of innocent life. With every awakening breach of terror in her bosom, it was but another cut in a slow death. With all her heart she did not want to go on, fore, with every breath, she knew that she was to blame for all of this.</p><p>It was because of the lies of an ashamed and craven little girl, that this had happened to her childhood home and the valiant men who died here defending it to their last.</p><p>But of this dark setting, Chris Everman was no stranger. Instead, rather than startle and shutter at phantoms of Downton, the man contended with ghosts all of his own making. Fore perhaps it was the smell, or the ruined darkness covered in cobwebs and neglect that he remembered best of the old train station in the underground city of forgotten New York.</p><p>If you had asked Lady Grantham, she might have been able to recall, from her childhood, the story of the accident. It was a train conductor or line manager who was drunk or, perhaps, whose mind had slipped for just a moment. Two steam engines, one from the packing factories of Buffalo and the other carrying Texas cattle from Dodge. A track got mislaid, a wrong switch was thrown that was missed. Then, on a crowded platform filled with people, the two incoming trains collided, head to head. It obliterated the station and eviscerated all, human and animal, within a mile. The police had evacuated the area, while the railroad detectives quickly covered up malfeasance, all the while, the mayor of New York looked the other way. In time, closed off, the rail line redirected, people forgot the station, it's platforms, and the community that once surrounded it.</p><p>Time was lost as new zoning, new infrastructure projects, and forced amnesia covered the graveyard of an old tragedy. Slowly, in most cases unknowingly, an entire bowery was built atop the old ruins. Storied buildings and train platforms were entombed by a dome of asphalt and pavement that tall art deco towers were built upon. It was a secret place whose existence could only be riddled out by the surges of electricity from passing subway trains that flickered the corroded lamps in front of dusty abandoned storefronts covered in near a century of cobwebs. Human and Cattle bones rattled in the swirling mists that obscured run off from the ancient sewers that seeped thinly upon the cracked stones of long ago.</p><p>It had been there that the Celestial Order of Si-Fan had made their lair. Swiftly and efficiently, had the assassins and henchmen of "The Devil Doctor" used the old Dutch sewer lines at the foundations of the forgotten bones of what once was called New Amsterdam. And it was there, bound hand and feet, head lying next to a corroded skull of a longhorn steer that Johnny Doe was sure that he would die. Fore he had stolen a relic of great importance from Mr. Levinson's old study while Sir Nayland Smith, Dr. Petrie, Georgie, and the old martial arts master were in the drawing room discussing where "The Old Devil" would strike next in his plot to destroy New York City. In hindsight, if he could've done it all over again, knowing what would come of it, he would've never touched the damn thing. Ever since he had swiped the ancient sculpture of pure emerald, he had done nothing but the wrong thing. And what had it all been for?</p><p>Perhaps, he would've welcomed death had he known what he did now. But at the time all he could think about was Gilda, who lay next to him. Then, in New York, she wasn't no Freya Ingrid, sex symbol. She didn't go everywhere with her big Culmore Irish tits out at every nightclub in Hollywood. She was Gilda O'Hara, his Gilda, the illegitimate daughter of an Irish immigrant burlesque dancer and a ruthless gangster. She had been a girl who only wanted to escape her monstrous father and his evil empire of prostitution and illegal pornographic movies of which he forced her to star in. When he had met her, she was Harold Levinson's girlfriend. When he fell in love with her, she was Harold Levinson's fiancé of the month. And when Johnny and Gilda ran away together, no one noticed or cared as the world fell apart around them in the Crash of 1929.</p><p>But hard work and no pay was what guineas from the old country like his Ma and Pop did. It was grunt work for canned beans and peaches in Staten Island that Chris Mezzanotte grew up on. But that wasn't no life for Gilda O'Hara. Sure, her old man pimped her out, tied her up and let his favorite gals in leather corsets spank her on camera for the sickos and deviants on the high avenues. But she also got what she wanted, when she wanted it, as long as she did what she was told, and she didn't call him daddy around his Dublin heiress of a wife. It was a life that she thought Mr. Levinson could save her from, it was a life that Ole'Johnny Boy swore he would never allow her to go back too …</p><p>But when you're starving in the Bowery, you're starving in the Bowery.</p><p>Tommy O'Hara wasn't what one thought of when you hear old Roman Apollo cursing his goons out about "The Little Mick." He was short, maybe five foot five. He liked a hunter green suit that went with a gold and orange striped tie and offset with his thick sprayed in place auburn hair. His whiskered sideburns were the only thing about the man that one could consider big. You didn't get more Irish than Tommy, and most, perhaps, wondered, if it wasn't, because, he was more Polish than emerald blooded. But, to Johnny's surprise, the man was by no means antagonistic. He seemed genuinely happy to see the daughter he never wanted or acknowledged. Though he wasn't thrilled of being informed that the former chauffeur she was in love with had been mixed up with that 'little vigilante son of a bitch' George "The Comet" Crawley. But Gilda convinced him that it was all in the past. So, he put Johnny to work immediately and gave Gilda her old expense accounts back, plus … a little extra.</p><p>It was strange what someone does for love. There were men who cut the love of their life's face with a butcher knife on a drunken night for being fucked by a man of power to protect her loved ones. Then, there was Johnny Doe, who rode around with a thick and hairy bruiser from Esker busting up shops and beatin on 'Pops' till they paid the boss what they owed. His days spent wondering how he went from plucking dead chickens, to driving the most choice of motorcars around Fifth and Park Avenue, to now breaking an old Irishwoman's fine china till she gave up her late husband's savings. Then, his only escape came in the form of Gilda, who always bought something new for him and herself so they could go out on the town. They'd drink, gamble, and fuck their grief away.</p><p>Till one night, when he wasn't drunk enough not to notice the lash marks on her ass, and the bruises on her nipples.</p><p>Then, maybe just drunk enough to have half the balls of Old Georgie, Johnny confronted the little Irishman. But what George had in training, his former chauffeur had in misfortune. When the goons had enough of kicking him around, Gilda begged for his life. Then, beaten and bloody, gun to his head, the little Irishman took off his belt and made Johnny do the honors. It was his life or Gilda's comfort in sitting. And that was where the similarities between him and old Georgie came to an end. Because, with gusto, encouraged by her father, he lashed the woman he loved mercilessly in front of her father and his lieutenants. He should've known then that it was over between them, that she would never see him the same way again. But he was blinded by a need of redemption and revenge for what they made him do to his girl. The girl that had given up everything to be with him, yet, ended up right back in her nightmare with the man she loved beating on her.</p><p>It was then, in the middle of the night, as he drank away his sorrow and started getting really friendly with his Barretta, that something in the shadows approached him. He never saw his face, nor what he looked like. Till this day, all he saw was six ruby eyes, <em>like a spider</em>, gleaming in the darkness while suspended under the Elevated Railway tracks. He did not ask Johnny's name; he knew all of them. He did not ask Johnny where he was from, he knew that as well. He asked the man with a bottle in hand and a pistol in the other if he wanted to end up like his stepfather, or if he wanted to save the woman he loved? For the answer of this riddle he need only to ask for a favor and repay it with one. And to Johnny Doe, anything sounded better than scarring his girl.</p><p>So, he made his wish and The Spider told him what he and Gilda must do.</p><p>It was two years since they ran away together when they were met at San Sochi's doors by George Crawley. In his hand was the "New York Post" whose front page was dominated by the news of the gruesome slaying of an Irish mob boss and all his lieutenants in a sickening and cruel blood bath. The one-time foe of Gilda's father, first as a bootleg smuggler and then vigilante, let them enter. Johnny asked if George needed his services, since he and Gilda had no place to go.</p><p>It was a full house then. An old English Policemen from Burma and his companion, mentors of George, were staying in the Fifth Avenue mansion. Also, his aunt and uncle, Lord Sinderby and his wife Lady Rose Aldridge, Countess of Sinderby, were living with him now as were their two small children. Then, he was also letting his and his aunt's friend Madeleine Allsopp, the embattled and cuckhold wife of the New York Yankee's Shortstop, stay with him as well, at least till the press moved off her. But more so, George had not forgotten how John Doe had abandoned his post during the Crash and absconded with his great-uncle's booze and fiancé while George was away in Ohio. But before he could make a judgement one way or the other, Lady Rose and the Honorable Mrs. Allsopp pervaded on the young tween to rehire Johnny and allow them to comfort poor Ms. O'Hara, who looked dreadful.</p><p>It was a tight fit financially, fore George Crawley, with the assistance of his Uncle Atticus, was now supporting a household of six people. And all of it was on a meager allowance provided secretly by his Aunt Edith, housing compensation by the Imperial consulate for Sir Nayland Smith and the good doctor's boarding, as well as most of it coming from the boy's juggling of many jobs throughout the city. But in the end, as someone who had lived in New York, alone, with no money, for a year, he wished that fate on no one. Cowing to the two lovely women of the house, George allowed the couple to stay …</p><p>To his and their own great misfortune.</p><p>It was never explained but Chris wasn't as stupid as he looked and felt most days since. But the six eyed creature that met him in the dark of the night had no interest in helping him and Gilda. Johnny was picked, because, he knew San Sochi and he knew George Crawley. He was targeted for this knowledge, groomed for this very moment by men, creatures, so old and evil, it made Tommy O'Hara with his fetish and deviant empires look like a toddler with a lemonade stand. It was only then, hog tied with his girl, that he realized that he was in over his head.</p><p>They had brought the sacred item to where they were supposed to. They entered the subway terminal under 54th, they took sewer access hatches till they found the old ruins of the" Underground City" and there they were seized. As death was moment's away all he could think about was how he got to this point. And he was comforted that at least it was love. That he had found someone that he was crazy about and did all he could for her. His only wish had been that he was better at being someone's one and only, and there was a pervading guilt that he had gotten them killed.</p><p>But it was then, just when it seemed a large oriental sword - older than the ruins of the oldest city in America – was about to fall. the whistle of something sharp flew from the shadow and impaled the Chinaman's hand. It was a leaf shaped throwing knife, balanced with mercury. Blood flowed and the Si-Fan henchmen cried as more whistling knocked weapons out of their executioners' hands. Then, bursting from a clockmaker's brittle and abandoned storefront, came two silhouettes. Their extended swinging feet kicked two lackies into a group of Si-Fan, bowling them over in a pile. And it was then that Johnny saw the truth of the matter.</p><p>Fore always were there feints within feints and schemes within schemes in these battles between I-Chin, the greatest of martial arts masters in the world and the mightiest of all villains, the imperious Fu Manchu - the greatest existential threat to the West.</p><p>And of I-Chin's students, singular in numbering, George Crawley was of an advanced education. Already instructed by the likes of Captain Nemo, Allan Quartermain, and Ms. Mina Murray in his younger years, the boy was not in lack of critical thinking. And when the Levinson's former driver arrived with his girlfriend, the daughter of the newly and gruesomely slain mob boss who abused her since she was a girl, George knew something was not adding up. But when he went to the morgue with Doctor Petrie and Sir Nayland Smith and saw the gruesome and deforming venom eating the wounds on the corpses, there was no denying Fu Manchu's play. Fore, the murder spree of the Irish Mobsters was the handy work of Tatsu Suchong – "The Bird Spider" – Court Magician of Fu Manchu. Then, it was only a matter of piecing out what Johnny and Gilda were after. So, they left the "Emerald Dragon" out in the open to see where the two love birds would take it. Now, an old master and his first and only apprentice, doing reconnaissance for the NYPD - who Sir Nayland Smith was lining up at the subway station - saw that there was no time. Quickly, the duo leapt into action. Gilda, being no stranger to a crueler bondage, had already worked her way free and was helping a hypnotized Johnny.</p><p>The last time he had seen Georgie in action was when those gumbas had attacked old Mrs. Levinson. Then, he was thunderstruck by the elegance and sleekness of the kid's fighting. Now, three years under the advanced tutelage of I-Chin, the kid was even better than before. He fought two Chinamen at a time, ducking and leaping sweeping and serpentine oriental swords. While the old man was simply poetry in motion. His hands were like lightning, his feet slipping and darting like he was some sort of Marigold Crawley of fighting. He took on four men at once and seemed almost bored by it all. There was lines and flowing grids that his fists and movements matched that it seemed only he could see, lay lines of the universe. It was inspiring, and Johnny knew almost instantly at the sight of the two in action just who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. But his longing to be on that side, to join in on what was unquestionably the right side in this fight, was jerked astray. Fore, even if he couldn't help, he could at least get Gilda away.</p><p>But when he found his girl, she was practically drooling.</p><p>When they were tied up, they both had saw the ruby eyed creature stooping in the shadows. For a long time, sitting with folded legs, he had been chanting ritually in a foreign language that was ancient and foul in sound. In front of him, upon a prepared altar, the Si-Fan placed the sculpture of the oriental dragon of pure emerald that had been stolen. Carved on the altar were strange runes, and at its center was a black corroding tree with a single eye wreathed in flame formed by its bare canopy. Since the beginning of the evil ceremony the foul words – foreign even to the ancient orient – The dragon had been glowing with a bright green hue that reflected off dusty windows and cobwebbed streetlights. At the center of the ornate and sacred dragon was a ball of light that radiated a warmth and purity. Yet, the Spider cursed the light and instead wished to correct this oversite, to bring such a power under his control for his master's purposes. And for this he needed lover's blood, fore it was by true love that the dragon was bound with purity.</p><p>But since then such an item of spiritual reverence had entranced the Irish heiress. She had eyes for nothing else, not the fight, or the artistry and wonder of the skill being shown by master and apprentice. All she wanted was the Dragon. It was then that Johnny saw that look in her eyes. It was the same look her old man got when he saw a particular young girl he liked from the cages where kept Immigrants. It was a deep and unwholesome lust for something pure and unspoiled that was coveted for its beauty. He should've stopped her when she ran through the kicks, punches, and swordplay to get it. But he only watched as her lust for the sacred and holy item overcame her fear of death and injury. But once she had it, Johnny wasn't sure he would ever want her again.</p><p>Fore when she looked up something strange happened to her.</p><p>Her beauty, her voluptuous Irish curves disappeared. She was a bony, gnarled, and wasted shell with sharp teeth and shifting eyes of a creature enslaved to a momentary satisfaction. He saw, in that moment, that she was no longer a victim of a cruel world and his own folly. Something about this night had changed her from deep within. All her higher hopes and greater love for him in the dreams they shared had given way to a greed unmatched. She believed now, after a life of beatings, that she must take, that she must grab everything in front of her, to get what she wanted in life. It mattered not whose neck she had to step on or who she must pleasure with her body, she would have it her own way from now on. She was tested by the sacred item and, to the man who loved her's very shame, he saw how easily she had failed.</p><p>But as she stood there, cradling the item of her heart's desire, revealed as this corrupted and ruined form of life, six ruby eyes appeared glinting in front of the broken station clock suspended above the platform. <em>"We have it, hahaha! Look Chris, we have it!"</em> She hopped up and down, holding the Emerald Dragon above her head. But he was frozen, unable to speak, as the frightening silhouette tore the hour hand off the clock that was frozen forever to the very second that the crash had happened near a century past. Her name died in his throat, and he wondered ever afterward if it had been by fear or design that he had not spoken out. But even as she held the dragon, her eyes were shocked, her face frozen in muted joy as the makeshift javelin thrown with uncanny marksmanship made a sudden stop right in front of her.</p><p>Till this day he could never unhear the cry of dismay in George's voice. Fore, darting in front of this terrible and ignorant creature of absolute greed, was the old man. In his chest was sank the hour hand javelin thrown by The Spider. He collapsed to the dusty and cracked platform, falling stiffly amongst the collection of human and cattle skulls. George immediately slid upon his knees to his master's side. The old man made a grunt when the boy withdrew the javelin from his chest. In his final moments as John Doe, the man watched in confusion and sorrow as the boy quietly spoke with his old master in a language the onlooker did not understand. But that was far from the forefront of puzzlements in his mind.</p><p>The chiefest being: Why?</p><p>The old man must have seen what Gilda looked like, what the truth of the ethereal glow had revealed about her corrupted nature. In that space of time, Johnny would've seriously thought about not saving her himself. Yet, the old master did not hesitate. For then on, whether he was Johnny or Chris, the man wondered if the old Chinaman wasn't the greatest man that ever lived. Above all else, even when a girl - kicked when she was down all her life – was at her lowest, most corrupted, there was a stranger who still believed in her. A stranger who would give his life for a woman who had stolen his most sacred object, twice.</p><p>But it was, with a conflicted heart, that Johnny Doe became ever afterward Chris Everman. It was at the crossroads, at the apex of his own trial, that he failed. In one ear was the haunted mournful cry of despair from George as his master died. And in the other was Gilda, clutching her ill-gotten prize, screaming for him to run. In that moment was presented a chance for him to redeem himself from everything he had ever done in those last few years under Tommy O'Hara and Depression's thumb. But he chose, instead, to go the other way. He told himself that it was love and not cowardice. But when he looked back from the hatch to the sewer tunnels, he saw what real courage looked like.</p><p>Slipping down, like a black widow from its silk webbing was the glimmering ruby eyes. The silhouette, in prone crouch, made no sound as he landed. But whatever it might have been, man or arachnid, he was terrifying to behold in the dark. Yet, George Crawley would not be moved by any terror of Hell's pits. While Chris shrank away, the young apprentice stood tall and steadfast. The ancient Dutch streetlamps flashed on and off in the passing of a subway above, their light flicking on the cold steel of a fallen Si-Fan warrior's blade that the boy took up in defense of his master's fallen body. But before Chris Everman could see what had happened, Gilda pulled him through the hatch. And as the heavy door latched shut there was a ringing of swordplay in flashing and clashing steel as the roar of the subway drowned out all.</p><p>Now, in the dim nightshade of the phantasmal glint of the obscured moon of the eleventh hour, the ghostly cries of those misty ruins leapt out at him. The oppressive gloom of the dreary corridor soaked in old death wrought images of guilt and doubt that gnawed ever at his mind. Out the broken windows that crooned mournfully to the dark silhouettes about them, Chis Everman felt the taint of his own perfidy in the breath that frothed in the night's chill. Like the night tide drawn by lunar cycle, he saw the thick mist rolling down the darkened moors out from the screens of the wild ancient forests at the edge of the Grantham Estate.</p><p>And ever in the wind, atop the single wooded peak of the hill that shadowed the Abbey below, was a voice. Chanting, dark, and foreboding in its midnight whispering that came hidden like an intruder in the coming fog. Somewhere, screened by trees and overgrowth, atop Spectacle Rock, the dim glint of stained glass and ancient stone could just be made out. "The Old Fortress" it was called, lost to memory of man, the once ancestral home of the House of Grantham. Yet, in the darkest of nights, in carnivals of shade and shadows, what ancient malady dwells in those ruined halls seeks to haunt the dreams and steal the future from those of the accursed blood of Lady Elfstone of whom it swore vengeance long ago.</p><p>All of it swirled about him in a typhoon of fear, anxiety, and wonder. The history of this house, this land, and the family that lived upon it were concealed by the glamour of the old-world nostalgia and romanticism captured in Austen novels. But as the hands of time turned to the mastery of Queen Mab, the grim reminiscing of five hundred years of tragedy, hatred, and sorrow riddled the halls with the spirits of a time and place filled with too many memories to be contained. And their cries and caterwauling with a deafening silence tormented him with fantastic terrors of which he scarcely confronted in his mind. Fore they were not the ghosts of the house, but the ghost that he carried inside himself, exposed by the familiarly alien settings of his most tormented memories.</p><p>"Just like old times, isn't that right, Johnny Boy?"</p><p>Sweating and breathing in the plutonian perfumes of old evils, Chris and Sybbie were startled by a gravelly and dark voice that echoed hollowly through the corridor. The girl didn't have time to react before she was in her captor's arms. She shivered at the touch of the pistol barrel to her pale temple as if it were ice. Both beauty and producer looked about the ruined hall in search of the figure that went with the disembodied voice that seemed to come from all about them.</p><p>"Hah!" The producer guffawed with a sweaty shrug. "Your Uncle out there was tellin us that old Zatara taught you a lot of things, Georgie. But being a showman ain't one of them!" He called out. Slowly, turning every which way, head on a swivel, he backed away, keeping Sybbie close.</p><p>There was a sudden rustle and heavy creak to their right.</p><p>
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</p><p>The roar of the pistol echoed with a rolling thunder down the abandoned wing of the ancient manor. Pivoting, the old chauffeur fired duel shots out the window and into the night. Sybbie let out a whimpered moan, covering her ears with her silk covered palms. But as the smoke sauntered from the barrel, the white streaming ribbons were simply caught by the chilled breeze that made the window creak and crack loudly as if someone was moving along them. The girl's captor snarled a curse under his breath, wiping his forehead with his tuxedo coat sleeve in frustration.</p><p>"Don't have to be a magician to make shadow puppets for simpletons and suckers."</p><p>The mocking voice of George only made the man grimace and jerk his head forward over Sybbie's creamy bare shoulder. With a shaky hand, he rotated his aim across his periphery. Every once in a while, he would whirl about hoping to catch someone trying to sneak up behind him. But he found many shapes and things of a tormented consciousness there in a split second's anxiety, but none of them was a tall youth. He whirled about again, making Sybbie groan as the twisting of her slender frame, like a dolly, making her balance uneven in her high heels.</p><p>"So, what was it, Johnny?" George asked.</p><p>"What … what was what?!" The movie producer stuttered. His gun moving slowly to and from the small of Sybbie's choker clasped neck across her pristine face in front of them.</p><p>"The luster of Hollywood too big for Romeo and Juliet?"</p><p>"That ain't it!" The man protested.</p><p>"Come on, you Guinea fuck. You can't bullshit me. What's her name?"</p><p>"I said it wasn't like that!"</p><p>"Why did you do it, Johnny? Huh? Those tits starting to drag and some teeny with a tight ass come along looking for a walk-on role? That it? That why you sold her out?</p><p>"No! I said it wasn't like that, man!" The demons of the last five years came out in a torrent. "I loved her; you fucking know that! Ain't nobody loved her better than me, Georgie! Man … I … I gave her everything!" He roared. "And she sold me out, man! SHE SOLD ME OUT!" He thumped his chest with his pistol passionately. "She wanted love, man, that was all she wanted! Your fuck-up uncle gave her diamond bracelets and fucking collars!" Sybbie gasped and tensed when the man suddenly ripped her choker from her neck as if it was some propaganda of a slanderous campaign against him. He threw it into an abandoned room.</p><p>"I was there for her! I was the reason that she stayed with that unfeeling, shallow, Kike muthafucka! She loved me, man! She loved me! And I did everything for her! When we were starving, I stole for her. When Tommy got us on the stroll, I killed men, I terrorized old women, and I stole from fucking kids! And I did it, just to be with her, to prove that I'd do anything for her!" He sounded almost like he was pleading then. His voice was desperate in appealing to … whoever, to understand him in this moment, trapped in hell, holding an angel hostage as a Black Knight from England's past hounded him.</p><p>"I believe you."</p><p>The laconic answer from the darkness twisted the man with rage. "Yo, Fuck you!" He roared, shaking his gun in front of he and Sybbie like a fist of outrage. "What the fuck do you know about it? Huh? Runnin around always playing boy fuckin hero like youse "The Shadow" or something! What I did, I did for love, I'm good with that!" He almost, for a moment, had himself convinced.</p><p>"What about selling her out to Suchong? Huh? You do that for Love too?"</p><p>Sybbie's hair stood on end. The ghoulish and terrifying voice of the man she loved seemed right in her ear. With a shot of adrenaline and anxiety, she snapped her head to the left. For a split second she saw a silhouette standing in the abandoned "Chinese Room". The faded crimson and gold of the oriental designs on the paper were scarred and peeling off in neglect. Though many of Lady Mary's failed suitors had stayed here in the past, the notorious Mr. Pamuk and embittered Mr. Richard Carlisle. But Sybbie herself best remembered it for having been their Uncle Bertie's guest room when they were small. She could almost see him standing by the tall wardrobe mirror. The great mystery of their Aunt Edith's new beau had been too big to miss. She remembered the pirate grin on his face as he glanced the triplet Quartet of the young children of Downton peaking at him from the crack in the door.</p><p>Ever in her mind, living forever in this ruined room, was the photograph that till this day sat on her Aunt Edith's desk. George standing on a trunk, with Sybbie mounted on his shoulders, her tongue curled out at the corner of her mouth as she helped their Uncle Bertie with his bowtie. Meanwhile, Marigold cleaned his dinner jacket's shoulders with a valet's brush as he held her in his arms. It was a wholesome moment captured early in their aunt's love affair. But often, fondly, Edith recalled that being the moment that she knew that Bertie was the one.</p><p>Still, after <em>five years in a coma</em>, their aunt and Marigold had not given up that Bertie Pelham would awaken and return to them someday.</p><p>
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</p><p>Now, she could only make a noise of protest when Chris Everman, following her sharp turn of head, twisted. He also saw the tall silhouette standing in the room. His coat collar was done up in the back, its tails and the young man's waving raven curls fluttering in the chill night air. The man fired twice. The shots muffled in the expansive guest room of many fond childhood memories. A pit of despair and fear for George's life was exhaled in confusion as Sybbie saw the figure of the young vigilante distort as nine-millimeter bullets put a forest of fractures and cracks into a wardrobe mirror. But in the blurred shards the silhouette still was reflected in a mess of jumbled shadows. Quickly, whirling gun and girl around, Everman pivoted again. He pointed to the sill of the hall window looking out at the back acres of the Grantham Estate near the foot of Spectacle Rock.</p><p>But no one was there.</p><p>Everman let out a sputter breath of fear. Glancing back at the Chinese Room, he saw that the silhouette of his adversary was also gone. He backed away from the opening of the room and glanced out the window where he found a fresh wet dew of someone who had climbed the ivy trellises to the windowsill. Alertly, he stuck his head out into the frigid air of the second story. He looked up, down, and both sides through his gun's sight. But he found no sign of life but the gleaming soft flashlights roving through the Downton drawing room on the other side of the manor. He let out a coughed breath of discomfort that hid a small panic of anxiety. But suddenly he drew his head back in.</p><p>Soft as a ghost's strides in the quiet midnight hours, a darting shadow moved across his and Sybbie's periphery.</p><p>For just a beat both captor and captive exchanged a dependent look of confusion and fear. Though there was no place that the beautiful young woman wanted to be more than in George's arms, she could not argue the strange comfort of the arm that wrapped across her midriff, not so unkindly now. Indeed, found in this frightening atmosphere was an unnatural kinship between hostage and kidnapper. After all this was not a George that Sybbie knew in the slightest. In her mind she felt as if he had become one with the heavy atmosphere of the abandoned wing, embracing the phantasmal fear and rage that torn his foe's nerves asunder. All had been for the girl's sake, she was sure, but it did not mean that George's long-held mastery of intimidation and psychological warfare in the dark did not affect her either. But for Chris Everman … this was truly his worst nightmare, the worst-case scenario. The one thing, he was sure of, that he did not want to happen was to be locked in a dark and narrow space with George Crawley.</p><p>"Oh, fuck me …"</p><p>When they turned the corner the man paused, wiping his brow with his sleeve again with a disbelieving shake of his head. In perfect order, spaced out six inches apart, were <em>thirteen</em> Grecian marble statues flanking the tattered red plush carpet. A halo of lusterless pale light from rounded stained-glass windows backlit their marble heads, casting twisted human like silhouettes upon far walls, giving the illusion of a room full of people. Between each statute was a potted tree, long dead, with grey shriveled limbs that hung limply in the cold air. At the mouth of the narrow corridor was a tall and heavy double door that led back to an occupied wing of Downton. But the only thing that Everman noticed was the twin rows of Lady Grantham's life like figures of Grecian and Roman mythology that she stood sentry upon the path to her and her children's bedrooms from the guest wing. There was a message in this that no one was quite sure what Cora meant to convey …</p><p>But it sure worked now.</p><p>Time for accounting was in order. He could not risk going back the way he came, with so many openings in the windows and the shambled rooms leaving too many places for an ambush. But if he continued on, he might contend with whatever was waiting for him through those doors. Be it armed family members, or the skeleton staff of the house lying in wait. Either way, Chris knew that he had to get out of this place. The pervasive gloom and the likeness to the Underground City cropped in a deeply psychological disadvantage, fore George Crawley had already broken through the defensive lines of the movie producer's mind. Here, in this setting, George had become more than just a man, but an avenging phantasm. In this ruined place, Everman truly felt that he was fighting Downton Abbey itself.</p><p>But once more, presenting his own self with leniency, the man hardened his heart against wisdom. Not now, or ever afterward, would Chris Everman deem that George was likely to forget the death of I-Chin, nor the betrayal wrought by Gilda and himself. Now, it was made worse by the man taking hostage the last haven of unspoiled love in George's life. It was not lost on Everman that his rash action was a gamble that had only not paid off, but instead endangered his life even more. It was then that he held to the beautiful Ms. Branson ever tighter, afraid to let her go. This lovely and silken fairy princess was a sleek shield that stood between him and a slow evisceration. He let out a strawberry and custard frothing breath that tickled Sybbie's ear as he forced her toward the double doors and into the statue's labyrinth. He turned their backs to the western corridor that led to the roof, moving slightly faster.</p><p>Every face was lifelike in the tall shadows that were backlit by the pale dim light of the eleventh hour. Their features were muted, disguised in the nightshade. Their tall silhouettes dominated the multicolored mural that clashed on the tattered plush carpeted floor. Some faces were clear and chiseled in great craftsmanship, while others, like the wise and fair face of Athena, were veiled by heavy cobwebs. In the cold night air through shattered windows, the whispering breeze gave the illusion of breathing in the tussle of cobwebs that wrapped the statues. And as captor and captive passed there was a sense of anxious unease in the crafted eyes that seemed to follow them with every move, the translucent threads giving a deception of life to the stone silhouettes of antiquity. Each face was drawn tight and grim, following them in the periphery as sentry guards.</p><p>Every once in a while, with a yelp of startle, Sybbie was forced to face a shaded statue. Her captor's pistol would then be jammed into the finely sculpted ancient face. But it did not move or react to the threatening nature of a gun pointed at its own head. Slowly, with sputtered breath, Chris Everman lowered his weapon. Then, he would nudge his captive forward with his chest against her back.</p><p>As they moved closer and closer to the double doors that led to the Crawley's apartments, a building sense of anxiety grew. Even in Sybbie's pale breast there amassed a tight and panicked sense of being chased by something. This shared dread reached its peak of crescendo at the final two statues. Then, it was through terrorized senses that they were petrified of the idea that the stone hands of Mighty Zeus and Queenly Hera would snatch them before they could breech the other side. The final few steps were had at a jog. Then, driven by pounding heart and roaring mind, Chris shoved Sybbie against the door first. She let out a groan of pain as her naked shoulder rammed against the dusty oak and greening brass. But soon she was joined by her captor who also rammed the door. But the heavy oak did not budge even an inch.</p><p>Sybbie watched as Everman tried everything. The knobs rattled as he tried to turn them. He cursed as he crouched looking for locking mechanisms and bolts. He resorted to even pushing and slamming his fist against it. But the old doors would not give. Sybbie knew, somehow, that just on the other side was Thomas and Ellis, maybe even Mr. Bates. Together they were holding the doors against them. It was by an intuition of one who loved him most, that she knew George had ordered Thomas to seal off all doors to the East Wing. That all along, she and her captor were being herded here to this place. She wasn't sure how she felt about that … but then she paused and let out a gasp that she wished she hadn't.</p><p>Immediately, almost out of revenge for startling him, the man grasped Sybbie's arm roughly and pulled her against him. In a torrent of fear and helpless rage, he fought the absolute dark impulse to take out his frustrations on his beautiful captive for her loved one's mind games played against them. But he paused when he saw it too. Though it took him a few moment's longer than the girl genius. With a hand shakily trying to hold onto the gun, both looked down the hall that they had just crossed without event, and there they found that there was a statue missing. Yet, in reality. All the statues were accounted to be there. Instead the deception was in addition and not subtraction. Fore, long ago, Ms. Cora Levinson had only brought twelve statues to Downton Abbey …</p><p>Not thirteen.</p><p>"OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, FUCK!"</p><p>Roaring, the Hollywood producer turned and began pulling on the handles. Wordlessly, Sybbie watched as the man's last strands of sanity left him. He lifted his leg to place it firmly on the door for leverage as he began to jerk on the corroding handle with all his might. It was then, seeing that he had placed his pistol in his dress trousers that a flash of self-determination overcame Sybbie. She was frightened by everything around her. She was scared of the man with a gun, she was scared by the heavy atmosphere haunted with evil deeds done in a once joyous place, and, most of all, she was afraid that all that had happened was her fault once more. Yet, she was overcome with a primal need to escape, to run away. Fore somewhere deep down, she knew that nothing bad would happen to her as long as George was with her.</p><p>Slipping off her shoes, Sybbie lifted her silken skirt and quickly sprang away on her stocking covered feet. It seemed for the briefest of seconds that her captor hadn't noticed. She had passed Aries, Aphrodite, and Vulcan when she felt the desperate breath of Chris Everman sting her glossy tresses. His hand reached out and grasped for her. He knew that if Sybbie got away that it would be over for him. His fingers clawed at the girl. Her silky gown was sinfully formfitting, and her skin was smooth and soft as milk, leaving nothing to grasp. But the girl gave a cry of protest when her progress was momentarily halted when his hand snatched onto the silver cape on the back of her evening gown.</p><p>
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    <em>CRISH!</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>Suddenly, just as he nearly got a renewed grip upon Sybbie, a shadowy figure came crashing through a busted glass pane from the outside. It felt like long ago came yesterday and today was but a haunted echo. Coming through the brittle window, a tall and imposing silhouette's hand gripped the side of Chris Everman's face and slammed his head hard against the wall with a mighty thud that shook the hall. The onslaught, hitting like an oncoming train, freed Sybbie. She fell to the dusty ground and looked up in terror at the battling figures whose shadows were cast larger than life over her prone figure.</p><p>George grabbed the movie producer by the lapels of his tuxedo from where the man had been crumpled on the floor with a ringing head. With a turn and pivot, George lifted his foe off his feet and slammed him against the wall with another rumble down the corridor. But with a fuzzy head from the ambushing strike, and a sudden shot of survivalist adrenaline, the tightly wound Chris Everman disappeared, the guilt-ridden Johnny Doe melted away, and Chris Mezzanotte from Staten Island, who fought goons who stole his rent money, came out.</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>CRACK!</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>CRACK!</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>He fired twice more at George's head, using the numbness to muddle the pain of the initial assault. But the shots went astray as the young vigilante ducked under the gun. Slipping away fluidly into a solid base of a martial arts stance, George blocked off the pistol with his left forearm and then moved in, snapping off two lighting fast haymakers that rocked the New Yorker's granite jaws. But on the third one, the street scrapper moved out of the way and drifted backward defensively. Then, he pointed his gun again. George repositioned and slapped the gunman's shooting arm astray, but Everman ducked the teenager's round house kick.</p><p>For a moment, The Staten Islander had George Crawley out of position. In a split-second move, knowing that he could not bring anything else to bear in timely fashion. The older and spindlier street fighter lowered his center of gravity and chose to tackle George. He drove the young man into the dust with a clouded plume that lingered above them when they landed. But in the textbook hit, George pivoted his landing, and in one smooth motion he rolled backward, bending his knees to his chest. Pulling their momentum into a half backward somersault, George pushed his feet into the solar plexus of Chris Everman and launched him overhead mid-roll.</p><p>There was a crunch of something snapping the Hollywood Producer's shoulder as he rolled wildly and awkwardly down the dusty corridor lined with Lady Grantham's statues. When he halted, he slammed his upper back hard against Aries's sculpted round shield at his feet. Teeth gritted; Chris was not out of the fight yet. Though in great pain, unable to feel his right arm, the man still had his gun in the left hand. Now out of range of George's martial arts prowess he had free aim at him down the corridor.</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>CRACK!</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>CRACK!</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>CRACK!</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>CRACK!</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>The shots roared like cannon blasts down the empty and silent hall. But each shot missed their target. The ability to anticipate a gunshot was something that both Captain Nemo and I-Chin had taught George fairly early in his combat training during childhood. He also learned from Ms. Murray, the first female medical student of the University of London, the added knowledge that a man who intends to fire his weapon twitches his center knuckle a beat before doing so. It was the bodies unconscious tightening of grip before pulling the trigger. And thus, practical and advanced combat instruction from legendary figures made George seem inhuman in his dance like evasion of gunfire. He jerked his shoulder left at the first shot, ducking in motion to the second, and rolled defensively away from the third. Coming out of the roll, George, in one smooth motion, scooped Sybbie into his arms from the ground and let the exploding left side of Hermes's face screen their retreat around the corner.</p><p>They were back at the shambled rooms for honored guests. Without a thought, George carried Sybbie through the threshold of the "Chinese Room" like a bride on her wedding night. Her arms wrapped around his neck tightly in a sudden blur of fear and anxiety of not knowing what was happening. But she recognized, immediately, the feeling of being held protectively by someone she loved with every glister of her soul. It was a long moment that they came together in the brief safety of cover. If George spoke, Sybbie did not hear him. Instead she shed tears and sniffled, while kissing his face all over. Letting out little strangled sobs. The stress had hit its fevered pitch and all she wanted was to expel those terrible feelings and emotions out of her. Eventually, among a fever of grateful kisses and tears, George set the girl down on her feet. Purposefully, having no time for consideration, George cupped Sybbie's pristine face washed with tears.</p><p>"Hey, Syb … look at me." He ordered. When he caught the attention of her sorrowful blue eyes, he nodded. "You alright? Did he hurt you?" He asked, stroking her hair with a hand.</p><p>"Just my pride …" The girl sniffled, feeling rather silly all of the sudden in retrospect of the grim faced and cold George.</p><p>The girl was confident, bordering on arrogant, when she insisted to join him on this case. But now she felt that she had rather let herself down, finding a showing of such delicate constitutions when meeting real dangers that George often faced alone for many years. She had wanted to show him that she could be a valuable asset, a true partner, and instead he was forced to rescue her on their first real big case together. Sensing her self-disappointment, George scoffed it away comfortingly and gave a soft peck on her bare shoulder.</p><p>"Pain in the ass." He shook his head endearingly.</p><p>"Show-off." She countered with a teary fragile grin.</p><p>But before they could continue their banter, running feet brought them out of their own little world that they often existed in together. Reacting to the sound stimuli, Sybbie felt the young vigilante's muscles grow taut through his leather peacoat sleeve in ingrained training. Quickly, he snapped around with feline reflex that would've gotten the drop on most intruders. There, at the corridor crossroads between the honored guest rooms, the hallway that led to the roof, and the statue's labyrinth back to the inhabited Downton, stood Chris Everman. He had his pistol pointed at George and Sybbie who were in the middle of the "Chinese Room" doorway. With a startled breath, the girl grabbed George's hand and tried to pull him into the room for cover. But to her dismay, George did not move.</p><p>Instead, he took a beat to look straight and deep into the injured producer's eyes. Then, as if coming to some sort of conclusion about the man before him, he, simply … placed his hands in his coat pockets. The heiress's heart stopped beating while her face contorted in fear. Meanwhile a cornucopia of fierce emotions passed over Everman's face. It was the second time that night that George Crawley had stared him down when it seemed that his adversary held all the cards. It was also the second time, unflinchingly, that the young man made a judgement about Chris Everman that dismissed the man as a credible threat. There were very few people in the producer's life who could look in the face of danger and know, with certainty … that today would not be the day. And there was a part of the man that felt truly insulted at the prospect. And yet, he was deeply and shakenly intimidated by the assurance of the tall young figure staring unblinkingly in challenge to the very specter of death.</p><p>Then, a rage filled Chris Everman when George gave a simple puff from the corner of his mouth in his direction.</p><p>
  <em>CLICK!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>CLICK!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>CLICK – CLICK!</em>
</p><p>Sybbie had flown with mindless fey instinct. With a whimper she threw herself against George's back and wrapped her arms around him. If this was his last moment, then it shall be hers as well. Fore, Sybbie Branson had long known that there was not a world that existed in which one was alive while the other was dead. And long ago was it foretold in places and stories that do not come into this tale that George and Sybbie's doom was bound as was their departure from the circles of the world. Thus, the girl was ready and willing to be slain by the very same bullets that would kill the man she loved. But after a beat she heard nothing but the clicking of a gun that dry fired.</p><p>When she squeezed an eye open, the side of her face nuzzled deep into George's leather clad back, she realized that nothing was happening. Cautiously she lifted herself up on her toes to peer over her partner's shoulder. It was there that she found her former kidnapper pointing his pistol at George's chest. Yet, over and over did the man squeeze the trigger and nothing happened. The Hollywood producer cursed under his breath, pounding and slapping the weapon with his palm.</p><p>But he had run out of ammo.</p><p>It was then that he looked up, hesitant and fearful at his opponent. Despite two silk opera gloved arms wrapped under his chest, George Crawley was still and silent as the room about them. The night's chill fluttered his locks and coat tails from a broken window as his hardened elemental gaze of cerulean eyes stared unblinkingly at the suddenly unarmed combatant.</p><p>To all of this, coming at last to the final gasps of hope, the older man was stricken with fear. In this situation the two things he could not do without was Ms. Branson under his control and the loss of munitions. In a matter of moments, he had lost both and found a way for his only escape route to be cut off. There was nothing else in his inventory or repertoire to combat this misfortune but what came naturally. So, with a powerful stride forward, he lobbed his pistol at the young man as hard as he could.</p><p>There was a hard clack of metal and gears that accompanied Sybbie's mewl of alarm while she ducked behind her partner. But it was with despair that the man watched George Crawley catch the spinning weapon right out of the air one handed as if it had been tossed to him in a game. After a beat of silence, George simply began to toss up and catch the pistol contemplatively, his eyes narrowing to a perilous glare. But he made no move to pursue as Mr. Everman turned and fled down the right hallway toward the staircase that led up to the roof.</p><p>For a long time was George stationary, tossing and catching the captured weapon of their mark. Sybbie could feel the coiling of his muscles, the breath becoming deep and short. It was building now, the rage in the memories of what was lost long ago. And it frightened her, fore, still, one could not see it upon his icy glaring face that was cut from the same clay as Lady Mary. George Crawley was perilous then, darker than the demons that haunted these ruined corridors and his own past. There were no words to stay the madness within nor the memories that did not stop.</p><p>"Go back downstairs and tell Anna and Bates they got five minutes to turn the breakers back on …"</p><p>The girl made a sudden and anxious noise when the youth popped the gun over his shoulder. The girl stepped back and caught it in her unsure elegantly gloved hands out of instinct. The paces that George Crawley took were measured and casual, unhurried, and yet terribly menacing. He seemed like a Hammer Film Monster that pursues a victim in his own time, confident that his mark had no way to escape.</p><p>"Or what?" She asked in confusion.</p><p>"Or Granny is gonna need a new carpet for the Great Hall."</p><p>The night air atop Downton Abbey bit sharply, gnawing in different places like a pack of hungry puranas. The vast scenery of the countryside was in every glancing turn. In the moonless night the looming silhouette of Spectacle Rock was like a great black cloud whose shadow hovered over Downton Abbey. From down the rocky and wooded hill came a miasma of mist that oozed frothily from the twisted limbs of old gnarling trees that had grown wild, swallowing ancient paths and stone roads that led up to its forgotten peak where an old fortress lay in ruin. Thick as pollution, the shimmering and crystalline jade obscurity rolled over the estate lands, covering the Downton Gardens in an impenetrable gloom. While beyond the estate the tar like blackness swept over fence, forest, and moor. Leaving only the bare tops of the pastoral country barrows to withstand the otherworldly torrent, like small green islands under siege.</p><p>What was real and what was in Chris Everman's head he could not tell. But out of the abandoned corridors of the East Wing he felt lighter, less compressed. But now, after so long in that ruined and tainted place, he found his attentiveness to the strange happenstances of his surroundings multiplied. And in the cutting wind he felt the buzzing of strange rhythms that seemed whispered. It was a tired and listless chanting that whistled through the old stones of the spired towers of this exceeding antiquity. It was old, perhaps ancient, but deceptive. Fore not all things that are old are sacred and not all knowledge of the old ways is wisdom. It was a long time before he began to realize that what was being said was pained, angry, and foul to the ear. It filled him not with distraction but bitter thoughts that pervaded his spirit with a foreboding sense of doom. With a glance, he looked out to the large rocky hill, hearing a clearer, wizened voice, bloated and corrupted with malice that whisper through the trees that were swirled about by the foul mist.</p><p>"It's coming from Downton …"</p><p>Quickly, Chris snapped back and found George Crawley standing opposite him. He had his hands in his coat pockets, his eyes narrowed into a glare. Motionless and still as he withstood the biting cold. The wind picked up as he spoke, cutting and cruel, as the trees rustled in the distance as a jeering crowd at the appearance of a villain. The cornered man did not speak, staring frightfully at the opposing figure.</p><p>"That's the name of it …" He continued. "The Old Fortress. It was called Downton once. It's the old Druid word for the main Roman frontier fortress before Hadrian's Wall. Downton Abbey is descriptive. It was Downton's Abbey, before Henry VII and his army of mercenaries laid waste to the fortress and scattered the House of Grantham … Yorkists, sworn enemies of the Lancastrian tyrants and the Tudor pretenders till Queen Elizabeth's dying day. The Second Lord of Grantham married one of King Edward and Elizabeth Woodville's daughters. Third Lord married the only daughter of Lady Margarette Pole. We're the last of the Plantagenets … unofficially. Land was returned to the House of Grantham by Catherine of Aragon out of friendship to Lady Pole. Named Earls by the Stuart Kings. Jacobite's to the very end. Then a cruel and childless man, embittered at his family, hid and rewrote our history with a bunch of lies so that foppish Georgian sycophants and boot licking monsters diseased this land and tarnished our family for over a century." The young vigilante explained.</p><p>"By the time someone tried to reform, do it right for the first time since 1746, most people might have said it was too late to repent for what had been done." George finished. There was a poignancy to his words at the end.</p><p>He said no more, but to look upon him was likened to hear the whistle of a coming runaway train, black ironed and fiery. The games had been played and the young vigilante's patience had been pushed to their limits. Now the business of the past and the retribution for what was sown would come to pass. The malice shown in the stalwart figure was so potent it could almost be tasted in the air, burning the tongue with its heated fumes.</p><p>"She stepped out me." It was all Chris said suddenly, in response to the veiled message. "All the time." He seemed deflated for a moment in defeat. "When we were in New York, it was us verses the world, you know? Poor kid from Staten Island, rich girl from the Upper West Side. Stuff you read about, eh? Even when was sneaking around San Sochi, it was always us … I mean, you remember, right?"</p><p>"…"</p><p>"Right … but after what happened, that night … the night that … well, you know. It was different, it was all different. She changed, she, uh, she left me behind out there in Hollywood. Meeting new and exciting people. To, eh, to tell you truth, Georgie … I don't know why she held on so long, you know? At first, I thought, after the first few years of her smelling like another man's sex … I was just familiar, you know? Sex was business, you know, a handshake, that was what Tommy used to say about her. But I thought, she thought, I was the real thing. That I was the one she loved. But, nah." He sniffed and shrugged. "Nah, she kept me around, because, I knew where she hid "The Dragon" … I overheard her talking at the Screenwriter's Ball to Pat's wife, Rose Brady … telling her that the only reason I was even alive, was because I knew were "The bodies were buried", no? Well, I took it too hard, I guess … I watched that damn Dragon come between us one too many damn times." He sighed with a mournful shake of his head. He then looked up at George. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about how it all went down Pisano. I didn't mean for it to end the way it did with you and old I-Chin. And I owe you my life …" The man nodded.</p><p>"You don't think after what you did in New York and taking Sybbie tonight, that "I'm sorry" is gonna cut it, do you?" George asked darkly.</p><p>But he didn't flinch when Chris Mezzanotte took from his jacket pocket a switchblade knife that he flicked open.</p><p>"Nah, and you're right, I'm gonna pay it down someday. But it ain't gonna be for this, I tell'ya. Not again. And not for Gilda no more." He sighed shaking the switchblade slowly while crouching down into a fighting stance.</p><p>"Then, take your shot …."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Prologue: Conclusion - Part I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>When he closed his eyes, the roof drifted away.</p><p>The smell of exhaust and moister melted into a fresher scent from days, years, and tragedies long past. For just a moment, he could see the cherry blossom tree blooming atop the brown stone. The old benches were placed around a small Zen garden of greens that were worth some money in autumn to put away to last the winter. He could hear the ever rumble of traffic of the vast metropolitan scenery of Gotham by gaslight that mixed with the bubbling and gargling in the rusting water tower. The old structure standing sentry like over the small sanctum amongst the hellish pavement and steel of the city of New York below. It was relief and solitude which could always be found there, away from poverty and strife that followed down every steaming alley from Chinatown to Fifth Avenue. In the middle of the night, in the glow of the skyline, jutting out like the granite jaws of a mythical beast, the lights amassed at the canopy of the tree. The flickered lanterns, the lonesome streetlamps, and the glare from across the Hudson created a reflection on the old architecture giving the night sky an amber glow that went on forever across the Island borough.</p><p>His brow twitched as he heard distant scraping that mingled with the buzzing of night insects that hovered and circled the lanterns atop the tree limbs or built into the poles that fenced the path to the garden. A young boy approached casually, but with light feet, hoping that tonight would be the night he snuck up on him. He moved silently, undetected by most ears. In his view was a stocky old man with long snowy hair in a top knot. He wore a long oriental shirt with twin serpent dragons weaving in out of the double breasted fastens. His pants were black and made of loose cotton material. The youth halted, watching as the small barefooted man moved and glided through a pit built at the very center of the garden. In his hands was a rake that he ran in different angles in long arcing circles through the sand filled pit. From a distance, the boy saw that it seemed that all focus and energy atop the roof was put into the work being done with rake and mind. The old man's almond slanted eyes were in deep focus, the small dark pupils smoldering like midnight coal that steams through a long cold night. Then, forgotten was the goal of the boy to sneak up on the man as he curiously approached.</p><p>But he halted when he saw what the man was working on.</p><p>At the center of the pit the young pupil became enchanted by the many concentric circles that weaved together seamlessly in long languid patterns that went on forever. The interconnectedness of the symbols told of a balance, a cause and effect, one circle's completion transitioning into a new cycle that seemed different, yet, it was the same. Others seemed so completely unrelated, yet, studying the lay-lines and patterns, one could almost understand where they came from, why they were the way they were. Each had their own story, but taken as a whole, they all seemed to share this beautiful pocket dimension. Every line circling and intersecting, even when seeming so insignificant, as it was all part of a greater cosmic purpose. The young lad was nearly hypnotized by the artistic wonder, this seeming map to the silver highways of the infinite that lies beyond the Circles of the World and end at the Timeless Halls. There were lines and patterns moving like notes and themes of an orchestral work of some master movement in a greater music, a concert that few heard or understood though it was all around them.</p><p>"<em>You're out of tune, Dunedain …"</em></p><p>
  <em>What?"</em>
</p><p>"<em>You're out of tune."</em></p><p>"<em>I don't understand, Sensei."</em></p><p>"<em>You're creating discord in the universe."</em></p><p>"<em>How so?"</em></p><p>"<em>You thirst for battle, young warrior. You seek redemption for what you lost, what was taken from you, by engaging in combat against evil. But your anger, your rage - against those you love - create discord in the music around you. Your will is powerful, your courage unmatched, but your hate is strong …"</em></p><p>"<em>I don't have hate."</em></p><p>"<em>Heh, yes, yes, you do. And it's loud, louder than the music which governs your destiny, that guides you to true purpose. It tells all of us where we must go, what we must do, if we only listen. But when you have hatred in your heart, you can only hear your own music, you fool yourself into thinking that you are alone, that you have no place in a universe that bends and twists to include you!"</em></p><p>The boy let out a soft sound of protest as he watched the old man twist his rake just slightly. It seemed outrageous, sacrilegious, to watch him begin to turn in opposite ways. Breaking the pattern. He started anew, but with less care, less precision. His new lines were subversive and meandering circles that tore across the once artistically crafted symbols, weaving carelessly through lines. Now, the order, the harmony, seemed lost as something else, uncaring to what came before, refitting what was already written.</p><p>"<em>Without balance, you do not hear the music! Instead you make your own, without accompaniment, and convince yourself that it is right, and force others to follow your own! That is greed, Dunedain … A greed of believing that you are owed, that your sorrow and anger, and only yours, can change the ways of the universe. And it is without humility, young warrior, that you trample what is already written."</em></p><p>"<em>You say that my baby sister was meant to die? That nothing I could've done would save her that day?!"</em></p><p>"<em>No! There is always a choice! Always! But what is written is a part of you and it is a part of me, created by the many lines and circles put in motion long ago, sung for you and me long before the very concept of us was devised. And for every choice there is a consequence with a thousand other lines and circles long after we're gone. But the music is not plotted without purpose, young Dunedain, and if you only listen to it, you might find the path that is most harmonious. But as long as you listen to your anger, feed off your hatred of those you love, you will never hear it. And you will be lost."</em></p><p>"<em>I … I just can't … I still dream of her, Sensei. I can still hear her cries in the night, her laughter in the mornings. I can still feel the look of venom in my mother's eyes for me when she was gone, as if I killed her myself when I showed up too late with her cure. I still remember coming down with the cold, weakened beyond all hope. Then, waking up in my Grams house, my clothes, my toys, my books, in crates around the bed where I was left. Nobody … nobody was there! I woke up alone, in my father's old room, left for dead by all of them. They threw me and all reminders of me out, like I was garbage, first chance they got! Their disappointment in me for not being able to save Caroline was only topped by not dying after I failed to save her …"</em></p><p>"<em>The music has spoken, her lines intersect in yours … but how can you hear your sister, your father, if your hatred for what is done drowns them out?"</em></p><p>"<em>How do I let go? After everything, how do I let go of all things done and said? How do I not forgive my mother when all I want to do is destroy her after all these years? What would the music have me do, huh?"</em></p><p>"<em>Haha! … Oh, young warrior.</em> <em>Rúguǒ kuānshù hěn róngyì, fùchóu jiù bù huì nàme tiánmì."</em></p>
<hr/><p>
  <strong>Days Ago</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>London</em>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYT5NKAIYI8">
    <em>"My Lagan Love" – Celtic Woman [Lynn Hilary]</em>
  </a>
</p><p>"Where Lagan streams sing lullabies<br/>
There blows a lily fair.<br/>
The twilight gleam is in her eye,<br/>
The night is on her hair.<br/>
And like a lovesick lenashee<br/>
She hath my heart in thrall.<br/>
No life have I, no liberty,<br/>
For love is Lord of all."</p><p>The soft sound of a voice, clean and fair, lovely beyond all comprehension, sang clearly into the night. For a frozen stillness of the heart, he thought that it had been part of the waking dream. The melodic gentleness and beauty of rapacity enchanted him. The brow to a shut eye twitched and for a beat of escapism in meditation he believed that it was the ethereal music which guided the silver streams of the infinite. The music, a grander gift of divinity to grace this hard luck case with but a taste of that which his discord was disrupting. But the voice, pure and bubbling with the serenity of a Celtic blessed stream, was familiar to him.</p><p>A solitary young man opened cerulean eyes with a flutter in broken meditation. They seemed haunted and fire hardened in the smithy of bitter battle and tragedy, windows to a soul that had seen too much of great sorrow and wonder too young. Above all his ennobling features, it was his powerful and elemental gaze that was all rather thunder and lightning that most often remembered him by, even those who met him even but once. His face was fair, more handsome than most, but marred by a grim sorrow that was forever prevalent, inescapable. A tragedy befallen many years ago, a mistake made in the dark, which he could not undo. And it was for the spirit of the loveliest of young southern belles, "The Rose of New Orleans", that her loss forever haunted the only boy she ever loved. With fully grown out curls of raven black hair that covered the back of his neck, he seemed unrecognizable to those who still sought the blonde-haired little boy in ties and shorts, dressed to match his once doting mama.</p><p>George Crawley's hardened features was tickled by the damp English wind that tussled his waving curls and long navy-blue scarf. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his faithful peacoat of beaten mahogany leather, collar done up in the back. It all made the young man cut a rather dashingly brooding silhouette against the city skyline from the tall London rooftop that he stood upon. With coat and looped scarf, he seemed a tall and statuesque figure. But from his private brooding he turned from his view of the city below toward the singing voice near him.</p><p>The fog off the Thames came thickly in the early spring night, like the vapors from the brewing of the black cauldron of these Witching Hours. Like a tidal wave, the frothing white clouds ran unchecked through the gridded and twisting London streets, their plotting and endlessness was nothing but discord to this Capital of a crumbling empire. From atop the tall building, the streets seemed overrun with foam that washed away shops, white rowhouses, and gaslit streetlamps whose shine was captured in a bulbus obscurity of haze. Yet, unbidden and untouched were the lights of the tall skyline which twinkled like stars on a cloudless sky. Their light gleaming and glinting in the uncovered darkness of night. And it was there that their reflection created a singular halo affect that crowned the pale brow of a young maiden that stood fearlessly upon the crest of the building's retaining wall.</p><p>If George's figure was brooding and stalwart, then that of the beautiful young woman was like one of a longing Woman in White, ancient and lovely, whose purpose had been forgotten in these many ages of the world. She seemed some figure of mythology, an Arthurian Princess captured within the annals of Erin's antiquity. The beauty mounted the roof like a perch upon a rock on the Irish coastline as she sung, surrounded by the surf of midnight's foggy foam. Her song crooned with enchanting melody that seemed to master the echoed clamor of the late-night bustle of Belgravia in the distance. The night stilled and the world quieted in the echo of her whispered voice that trickled through the dark hours with gentle words that strove against the miserly plots of Queen Mab's reign in the dreams of a sleeping city.</p><p>"And often when the beetles horn<br/>
Has lulled the eve to sleep,<br/>
I'll steal into her sheiling lorn<br/>
And through the doorway creep.<br/>
There on the cricket's singing stone,<br/>
She makes the bogwood fire<br/>
And sings in sweet and undertone,<br/>
The song of hearts desire."</p><p>Then, in the fairness of her enchanting voice, for just a moment, years of woe and sorrow melted from George Crawley's face. He beheld her against the view of the twinkling stars of a city alight. Her matching raven curls in glossy ringlets that were accented by a regal white satin bow. The damp wind fluttered the ends of her long coat of dowdy velvet revealing a designer white dress of silk that clung to her slender porcelain legs. He watched her sing, her long gaze drawn to the skyline in wonder. Her voice called out into the night, serenading it as if it were a singular being - a god of old – whose song she was presenting as an offering for blessing. For a long time, her matching cerulean eyes were lost, the sorrow deepening in them as her voice quieted and the last echoes were swallowed by gust and distant motors. Then, she closed her eyes, and let the night settle about her.</p><p>She was still for a long time as George watched her breathe deeply the night air, unburdening herself at the edge of oblivion. All the sins and wickedness that she had endured from others of whom she had been given too was washed away by the night. But most of all, for just a druid's prayer, she allowed her own sins, equal to the terrible things done to her, to be taken from her by this moment of peace and wonder. He saw her become lighter. The languish of such private torments released her from their shackles in a heartbeat's reprieve. Then, she forgot the violations, the willing evils of her own lusts, and the vile lies she told to those who loved her most. There atop the roof was only a young woman who basked long in the night's air, free to be carefree.</p><p>Then, slowly, a small satisfied grin spread over Sybbie Branson's ruby lips.</p><p>"Thank you …" She whispered.</p><p>"For what?"</p><p>"For showing me this …"</p><p>"Didn't have much of a choice … Ní féidir labhairt go díreach le gnó taobh istigh." George quirked an eyebrow finishing in a hardboiled tone of fluent Gaelic, their special language of secrets since they were little children.</p><p>"Maybe …" Then, Sybbie turned to face her best friend, her cousin, and the only man in the world, other than her Donk and Daddy, that she knew she would love forever. "Ní chiallaíonn sin nach bhfuil sé go hálainn fós." She answered quietly.</p><p>George scoffed in amusement at the sentiment, at the surprising amount of vulnerability and sincerity in her deep blue eyes as she spoke her words. The wind picked up, catching her curls like the regal standard of a righteous king of the past. Then, in a sudden pain of his heart, the young man realized that he had forgotten … He had forgotten what it was like to be around someone whom he loved.</p><p>He had forgotten what it was to know, in your very heart, why it was that so many things done in valiantry and to grievous injury of body and soul had been accomplished when all hope seemed lost. It had been for these moments, alone, on some midnight roof top when the one person, the very last left to you, looks the way she did at this very moment. Her beauty, her joy in the smallest pleasure, burdened his heart with the weight of a goodly hurt. The soft and genuine smile of delight on Sybbie's pristine pallid face gave him a priceless absolution that a young boy searched many a year for in the badlands of a Depression stricken world.</p><p>He was captured by the single stray tear that fell down her pale cheek.</p><p>But before he could go to her, they heard a door open. The youth didn't turn around to the approaching scuffing of several pairs of soles that walked across the damp gravel with crunches. But Sybbie cleared her eye, giving a pleasant smile to the new arrivals. She reached down toward the young man still caught up in the last wisps of the fairy land which they occupied together. When he took her hand, helping her down, he felt it settle in his. They matched a gaze that was intimate and private, words unspoken, but emotions of safety and a love so deeply felt in two souls that it could never be removed. She lingered against him, hand on his chest in gratitude for giving her this, showing her this … for coming back for her. When just months before she might have stepped off that very ledge than live to wake in another one of her mama's friend's beds, to know she must lie to her family to protect them from her wickedness. Now, she awoke every day in her family's bosom, or with George at Crawley House, knowing that she was safe … that nothing could hurt her in his arms.</p><p>"I must beg your forgiveness. I hope it has been a lovely evening to enjoy."</p><p>"It's had its moments."</p><p>George responded with a gruff coyness as he turned toward their new arrivals, releasing Sybbie's hand. Before them were three men. The first was tall, not as tall as George, but near enough. He had sharp hawk like features and was long limbed, though something spoke of a limber sinew that was tougher than one might expect. He wore a long grey tweed coat and matching fedora. Next to him was a stocky fellow, with a head of wispy cropped hair that was white and thin. In his youth he might have been a fit man, but now he bore some girth, his jowls covered by a distinguished goat-tee and mustachio. And the last of them was a shorter man than the other two, but by far much younger and handsomer. He had perfectly parted brunette hair that was cut sharply. His face was expertly proportioned with strong cheekbones and jaw. He also stood apart from his companions for a snappy and immaculate three-piece suit that was all style and not a stitch of tweed. His bright grey eyes and clean-shaven face meant to dazzle the press told George that this one wasn't English.</p><p>"So, it seems we meet again, Captain!" The hawk featured older man held his hand out to George.</p><p>"Evening Commissioner." The youth shook Sir Dennis Nayland Smith's hand. "I could've sworn that you have people who work for you." It seemed to Sybbie and the good-looking stranger, who watched quietly, that by George's sarcastic comment that this was starting to become a rather regular occurrence.</p><p>"I believe the word you're looking for, sir, is Policemen." The Commissioner corrected with a charmingly deprecating rebuke.</p><p>"Policemen? In London? Could've fooled me." George deadpanned. There was a round of amused chuckles at the young man's sharpened wit.</p><p>"Yes, it does baffle them as well, doesn't it?" There was something rather muttered in the drifting off of the harried Commissioner of Scotland Yard that pondered on deeper problems that could only be guessed at. "But, ah, another question for another night … if you'll excuse the old Sword of Damocles." Sir Nayland Smith waved off. He cleared his throat, turning toward the men behind him.</p><p>"Captain Crawley, of course, you remember my boon companion for many adventure, Dr. Petrie." He ushered forward the stockier older man with mustachio.</p><p>"My dear chap!" The old gentleman exclaimed reaching out in almost disbelief at the young man standing before him. "I dare say, I can hardly believe my eyes!" He took George's hand with some reverence and jovial dismay.</p><p>"How are you, Doc?" The raven-haired youth said with a nostalgic affection that one feels at a long reunion that is had with an old comrade-in-arms that much danger and emotional duress had been shared with in the past.</p><p>The old gentlemen looked the youth up and down with a shake of his head. "I remember a small boy with a peculiar way of talking and mole skin jacket with strange Hyborian Hieroglyphic on the shoulder. To be sure, when The Commissioner told me that we were meeting you, I didn't quite know what to expect after all this time. But it certainly isn't this. By God, sir! I can hardly believe that you have grown up so much since New York! Extraordinary, simply extraordinary, indeed, sir!" The old man was enthusiastic, feeling a bit more strongly the nostalgia, perhaps even some paternal pride in seeing such an exemplary young fellow in times of crisis evolve to a man grown with such dash.</p><p>"Lots of things have happened since then, I assure you, Doc." George had an added blackness to his humored voice.</p><p>"Yes, we were all kept well abreast of the dreadful New Orleans business. I mourn the loss of the Honorable Ms. Allsopp. I was her mother's attending physician when cancer took her, you see. So, I had a rather investment in her happiness. I had hoped from our time in New York that she might have some with her new Baseball player husband. But alas, nothing is certain these days. I had a rather fancy to write a letter of some sort to convey my condolences, but then, to whom or where would I send it?" The old gentlemen suddenly became downcast, almost glassy eyed.</p><p>"I know how you feel … but I assure you, the animal who murdered her got his." Now there was only dark savagery to George Crawley.</p><p>"Yes, all of London heard of this beastly "Necromancer" haunting the French Quarter and such … But it was a shock to the system to hear who he really was, after all this time." Sir Nayland Smith seemed confounded by the unthinkable answer to a spectator's riddle published in newspapers for some five years.</p><p>"Yes, Kâramanèh and I were sitting for a spot of tea when it was right there, in print, by god! <em>Professor James Moriarty</em> finally dead. And who can believe it? After all these years of the old villain slipping the noose?" The Doctor was almost confused by the realization of the words spoken aloud.</p><p>"Yes, 'The Napoleon of Crime' has finally met his Wellington in the City of the Dead it seems." The Commissioner tipped his hat to George.</p><p>"Yeah, it only took nine years, and the death of family members, close friends, and many other innocents." The young man said broodingly.</p><p>"But in the end, it was you, sir! You who finally did it! And I believe, truly, that even Mr. Holmes, wherever the old boy might be, would agree that there was no better man to avenge Captain Quartermain and Ms. Mina Murray than you, sir." He placed a friendly hand on George's shoulder. "It's right … it was right." He shook the boy in encouraging comfort with the camaraderie of an elderly uncle.</p><p>"Here-here, my dear, Sir Smith." The Doctor once more shook George's hand. "To Captain Crawley, may the tides change but never your fortunes." He toasted with a lift of his own hat.</p><p>Sybbie's face lightened when she saw, after so many years, a comfort found in George's eyes. Had anyone else praised him for what had happened in New Orleans, he wouldn't give it much thought. How could Donk, Granny, or their Aunt Edith understand, truly, what it was to fight such a dastardly villain? Their granny could mourn the death of Grandmamma and Uncle Harold, level with her grandson on the many close friends that the man tormented and killed. But she might never understand the man, the beast, that had murdered them.</p><p>No one in Sybbie's world, not even she, knew what it was to hunt and fight a stark raving lunatic that had an IQ and Intellect that surpassed everyone else's on the planet. Nor knew what it meant for a young boy to spend much of his childhood haunted and stalked by the atrocities of a cruel old man. A rival driven mad by ancient artifact, a mask, that contained the foul spirit of a demon from the ancient world … or so they say. But when the compliments came from the two old gentlemen, men weathered by years of experience, old mentors that had taught the boy what to look for and how to defend himself.</p><p>It meant everything in the world for that young man to hear their praise for a job nobly done.</p><p>"I see, also, that somethings have not changed." Commissioner Nayland Smith pointed out the discrepancy in etiquette at the fairest of young women in their midst. "Always accompanied by the loveliest of creatures, eh, Captain?" He complimented the girl behind him.</p><p>The youth scoffed in humor. "Is that why San Sochi was your base of operation in New York?" He asked with jovial accusation.</p><p>"Steady on, sir! I can speak on the Commissioner's behalf as a man of honor!" The doctor leaned into the conversation in outrage. "And I wholly attest to Fifth Avenue being quite the strategic place for running operations against the old devil doctor!" the stalky gentlemen testified. But then, placing a finger over his lips he leaned in a bit closer in mischievous levity. "But I dare say, having Lady Sinderby about at all times of the day didn't hurt either." He chuckled.</p><p>"No, it did not." The Commissioner unabashedly admitted with a pleasant memory of the lovely Lady Rose in her loose silk dresses and bright loving smiles. "As it does not for this young lady as well, miss …?" He turned to Sybbie. George glowered good naturedly.</p><p>"Nayland, Doc, might I present Ms. Sybil Branson. My cousin by blood, sister by adoption, and my unofficial, case by case, partner in matters of deductive science." He stepped back to allow Sybbie to step forward to the two older men. She gave a charming curtsy, already swept up in a nostalgia she didn't understand, yet was taken under by the wholesome chemistry and history of comradery and heroism between the three old companions.</p><p>"Syb, this is Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith."</p><p>"Madam, I'm entirely at your service. But I must say, before my intentions are questioned ever further …" He side-eyed George teasingly. "I offer it not in the mercenary pursuit of beauty but in gratitude to your father. I was one of the first costumers of "Branson and Talbot Motors" and I dare say that I found no automobile more reliable. Thus, to the crown princess of such a worthy kingdom, I return my fidelity." The knighted police officer removed his fedora and bowed low, giving a courtly peck to Sybbie's knuckles in an old fashion greeting.</p><p>"Your reputation proceeds you as well, sir. I remember reading about your exploits in Burma as a girl on my Aunt Edith's lap. It's an honor, truly, to greet the man who strove against the <em>Drums</em> of your legendary adversary." There was a courtly and regal manner to Sybbie's greeting that was quality to a royal princess of old. She bore herself with an expertise in the execution of aristocratic etiquette after being taken from Tom Branson's custody to be the "Personal Ward" of the King Emperor and his Queen for six long years. It was a childhood of shining palaces, luxurious pampering, and lavished court life in a position of great privilege as a hostage of the Winsor's.</p><p>"Thank you, Madam. But I seem to hear rumblings that my exploits seem quite tame compared to another's whom the venerable Marchioness of Hexham has a reputation of penning in "The Sketch"." There was something teasing in the way they all turned to George.</p><p>"I'd be humbler if I ever saw a goddamn red cent from it." George complained with a dismissive scoff while rocking on his heels in agitation, hands in his leather coat pockets.</p><p>"Might I recommend a good Solicitor, then." The Doctor stepped forward in amusement.</p><p>"Good Lawyer?" George snorted. "Those are two words that go together as well as bad and pizza, Doc." The young man prodded.</p><p>"Hah!" The Doctor surrendered to being bested in gab. "Then, perhaps, in search of different wording, a <em>competent</em> solicitor." He corrected.</p><p>"That'll do …" George shrugged turning to Sybbie. "This is Doctor Petrie. It's his notes that Aunt Edith edited together for a manuscript." He introduced.</p><p>"The depth hands of a writer and a doctor, sir. Is there anything you cannot do?" She smiled. The old gentlemen greeted the lovely girl by a simple taking of her hand in courtly fashion. Though he seemed stricken melancholily by the sorrowful eyes of the girl who smiled warmly at him.</p><p>"Well, I can jolly well see that it remains that I'm still unable to out match your valiant young captain in wit." He chuckled with a chastising finger at George. But then, with determination, he turned to address Sybbie grandly. "But I might try a different avenue all together by saying how auspicious this evening is while you're in it, my lady." The old gentleman bowed and stepped away, speaking candidly with the hopes of raising the girl's spirits. George rolled his eyes with a smirk and affectionate shake of his head that was shared by Sir Nayland Smith.</p><p>But for Sybbie the complement warmed her heart greatly.</p><p>For so long she was lost in darkness. Every person she met, was ushered toward in private, had only evil intentions. Whether she was to be sold to them, or if their charms had won her to their bed privately, always there came an expectation of her to these sorts of meetings. It was bartering, it was selling, and it was settling on a price. Her flesh bought with a piece of her own soul. But now, being carried into this new world that George occupied, it broke her heart to see how deeply lost she had truly been.</p><p>Her suspicions, her flinching, melted away in the realization that not all men whom she met in seclusion were like those that she had been sold too. That in George's world, there were men like Dr. Petrie and Commissioner Nayland Smith, as well as many other friends to George of whom were good and honorable. Men and women of all classes and background that had been well chosen for these virtuous qualities, not for the profit of an agenda the way her granny, mama, and aunts chose their own circles.</p><p>And in her, these moments only enhanced her desire to be by George's side, to share in this world, his world. This place that he sheltered her against the storm of trauma and nightmares while the wronged and broken young beauty looked for new footing in a world that had taken so much from her. Yes, there was danger and violence in George's world, but there was also good again, a clear and defined good that she could trust, that would not turn in the night and tie her down to its bed to enslave her to its lusts. She knew, instinctively, that these two old gentlemen were heroic and worth so much more than anyone she had met after years in so many High Society circles of friendly rivals.</p><p>And it only made her love George even more for letting her become a part of it.</p><p>"Alright, alright …" The youth in question broke the doctor's light grip on Sybbie's hand playfully. "You're a married man, Doc." He reminded him teasingly as the two teens intertwined their fingers comfortably in old childhood habits.</p><p>"Yes, and bravely won!" The Doctor assured.</p><p>"Perhaps, but I do hope Kâramanèhremembers that when your return home at this late hour." Nayland teased.</p><p>"Not likely … but why else then did God invent chocolate pastries at all-night bakeries?" He chortled with a wink at Sybbie which made her grin softly.</p><p>"Well, on that note …" George suddenly became serious, releasing Sybbie's hand as if unmooring himself from comfort and safety to the dangerous stormy seas at the edge of the world. "Unless we can all look forward to Doc's new investment in the culinary art of jelly filled, I think it's time to talk a little business." The youth became suddenly darker in tone and mood.</p><p>There was pleasantry, levity, and comradery, but in the end, it was only the grim and troubling of circumstances that London Police Commissioner Sir Dennis Nayland Smith called young George Crawley to the rooftop of Scotland Yard.</p><p>"Quite so … quite so." The Commissioner trailed off again. Then, he straightened, becoming incredibly serious as if addressing a room of constables. "Captain, might I introduce …" He stepped aside.</p><p>"Monroe Stahr."</p><p>The man that had of yet to be introduced walked forward with his hand out. "Sorry, Commissioner, but I like to skip formalities." He apologized cordially but with a business-like attitude.</p><p>Almost immediately, George could tell that this man with snappy dress sense and ambiguous American accent - almost as ambiguous as his own – was used to calling the shots of wherever he was. They shook hands firmly, looking one another right in the eye. It seemed that he was meeting someone who did business under the guise of being upfront and honest … but was always reading the situation, ready to use what he knew of someone to manipulate them into doing what he wanted. He was clean cut, handsome, and had an intensity, a drive. When a man like Monroe Stahr told you something … you listened, cause, he could convince you that he knew better.</p><p>"George Crawley." The youth introduced himself.</p><p>The man nodded. "My wife, she uh, she was a fan." There was a sudden sincerity.</p><p>"Of what?" George asked continuing to shake his hand.</p><p>"Your story, stories. She had an overseas subscription to "The Sketch". When it came in the mail, she'd shut herself in our room and not come out till she had read your latest adventure at least twice. Then, I'd hear nothing but her gushing over it at brunch." The youth couldn't tell if it was real admiration or the opening of a negotiations for film rights.</p><p>He was good.</p><p>George snorted mirthlessly. "Yeah, you're talking to the wrong guy, pal." He let go of the man's hand. "My aunt, Lady Edith Pelham, she's the one to tell you all about your Edgar Rice Burroughs hero. But he ain't me." He stepped back, putting his hands in his leather peacoat pockets.</p><p>This didn't seem to deter Mr. Stahr. "Well, every good story has an embellishment here or there. That's what makes the good … magic." He flashed a pair of perfectly white teeth that near shined in the city light about them.</p><p>A brooding smirk came over the raven-haired young man. "Embellishment?" He snorted.</p><p>"Too strong a word?"</p><p>"In the opposite direction."</p><p>"Really? Wouldn't mind hearing the real thing someday."</p><p>"Heh, not if you value sleep."</p><p>"It's overrated."</p><p>"So are the last few pictures you and Pat Brady have put out since your wife died."</p><p>There was a startle in the confidence of the movie producer, an inaudible and motionless stumble in the conversation. But it quickly faded as the man looked down a moment at the black fedora he was twirling from hand to hand. The slightly younger of the two couldn't tell if it was the sudden reveal of knowing who Mr. Monroe Stahr, architect of "Brady-American Pictures", was, or the mention of their most vaulted starlet, Minna Davis. A woman who had been dead these past two years. There was a pang of regret to see the clear wound that he had kicked in the man. It was rare, but he guessed it did happen …</p><p>A man from Hollywood who actually, genuinely, loved his wife.</p><p>Eventually Monroe looked up and gave a mirthful chuckle of breathless noise. He pointed his hat at the emotionless young silhouette in front of him. "As you Brits would say, we've got ourselves an even pitch, <em>Detective</em>." He complimented with the most backhanded spirit.</p><p>"As they say in the States, Stahr, you just might swing and miss at this one." George shot back.</p><p>Both dueled in inuendo and double meaning like fencers. No one was quite sure why the two men, who had seemingly just met for the first time, had such tension between them. There was something under the surface, something exceedingly prevalent that spoke to a shared origin of a cold conflict. It simply wasn't just two alpha figures clashing, pack leaders misliking the challenging pheromones being given off. There was more than just rubbing each other the wrong way. But some secret knowledge of the other, some unsaid accusation pointed at the two. Things and feelings unacted upon, but knowing that they were right there, just under the surface.</p><p>What it could be was foreign to Sybbie, but she acted in these moments in accordance to how she was raised</p><p>"Hello, again, Mr. Stahr."</p><p>The girl broke the uncomfortable stare down between tall young adventurer and smaller movie producer. But perhaps if her partner had told her the true story, the reason for such mistrust, she would've seen that her injection into the situation was the opposite of helpful. Fore, as it was before, during her audition for the movie weeks ago, Mr. Monroe Stahr was stricken at her very presence.</p><p>She had remembered meeting the man when she had come to read for the part of the starring role for the film "Too Sorry for Too Late". He had spotted her immediately, stared as she sat with Marigold, practicing her lines together. Eventually, he had come over, asked for her name.</p><p>He was different than the other movie producers that Sybbie had met. He was a better breed of man than those Hollywood lackies that had once hung about with Roger Sinclair. Those small, grubby, little men that were always lusting and sniffing about her in private, bartering with her 'future step-papa' to have 'his little princess' for a night, like dogs whining for scraps. All that day Mr. Stahr treated Sybbie with care, respect, almost reverently. They had talked for hours. In that time, he gave her inside tips on the role, what his director would be looking for. And for some reason, the girl didn't find him perilous, nor sensed a double understanding to get something out of it from her. Mr. Monroe Stahr, genuinely wanted Sybbie for the role, he truly wanted to take care of her, to make sure that she had everything she needed.</p><p>Marigold, who chaperoned the entire business, pondered if maybe Sybbie had become his muse. It happened a lot to Marigold. There had been a great deal of composers, chorographers, and directors of many ballet productions from all over that besieged Lady Edith's door in the off-season for a dinner, a lunch, a meeting with the most popular Prima Ballerina in the world. To this, her sister warned her that people like that, whose obsession for a performer transcends the art form, shouldn't be trusted. But the funny thing was the girl didn't mind if she was his muse, not at all.</p><p>It was something in his eyes, a sort of sadness and romanticism that reminded her of – funny enough – George. Mr. Stahr wasn't a sleaze or a smooth talker at heart. He seemed … lonely, heartbroken, and filled with a missing sense of purpose. She didn't know if he was a good man, or who he was while in Hollywood. But in London, to a young beauty, he was a perfect gentleman who put all his bottled-up devotion into helping her succeed. And for a moment, it seemed as if Sybbie Branson, on her very first audition of her very first try of professionally acting, almost became an overnight sensation. There was such lofty talk, big deals, big pictures, Academy Awards.</p><p>But then, she met the head of the Studio.</p><p>Mr. Brady was nice, charming, had a roughness that people like George and his friends from New Orleans had. The memories of being poor, of a childhood on the street, making them rather prickly and yet so terribly amusing in the little oddities of a full life that they played up for comedy. But in the end, being a coinsurer of subtilty, Sybbie knew the moment that she walked into Mr. Brady's London Office that there was no way that she was getting the part, much less Hollywood stardom.</p><p>She remembered Marigold holding her hand, telling her that it was alright, that something else will come up someday. Meanwhile Mr. Stahr and Brady had their shouting match once they left. In the end, to escape the rather embarrassing scene the two partners were making over a single young British Heiress, Sybbie and Marigold decided to leave. But as they were walking back to the car, the handsome movie producer jogged after them, after Sybbie. She told him that it was perfectly fine, that perhaps acting wasn't for her after all. But the man, strangely, had glassy grey eyes. It seemed that he, momentarily, panicked when he found that she was gone.</p><p>Immediately, Marigold tried to coerce her into the car with polite reminders of things that they did not need to do that their granny did not ask of them. But the girl found that she could not abandon him, this man who seemed so genuine in his adoration for her, that truly did not want her to leave him. She didn't know why at the time, but she found it a true wrench to reciprocate to her sister's courteous but firm and worried encouragements that they had to leave. Even now, she remembered a confused tear of a deep compassion that slid down her porcelain cheek as the two girls pulled out of the car park, one eye on the road and one on the man still standing in the middle of it watching her drive away.</p><p>Now, weeks later, they met again. And there, as it was before, was the stricken look of enchantment and longing that moved her heart so. But this time she knew why it was. All it took was going down to the Servant's Hall, asking to look through the old cinema magazine that she let Thomas borrow.</p><p>There she was, her favorite movie star, Minna Davis.</p><p>She remembered seeing "I'm No Saint" dozens of times. It was a story that seemed made especially for Sybbie. Minna was a nurse during the war, a woman with a dark past that she must overcome to find love and redemption. Marigold went with her three times, Mama and Granny twice a piece, and Daddy once … but he cried at the end, though he didn't say why. She knew it had something to do with Mummy, so she didn't ask. Ever since then, Sybbie had never missed one of the Brady-American Starlet's movies.</p><p>But Sybbie's love was for Minna's aesthetic, for her characters. She bought all the magazines she was in, but only to look at the pictures. Like her mama, Sybbie's beauty stylings were taken from movie actresses. If it was chic in Hollywood, then it was what Lady Mary Crawley and her daughter Sybil would bring to London. However, for the first time, after doing nothing but crying at the headline of "Minna's final days" since she got the magazine in the Post, the girl actually read the article inside. And that was when she saw his name. Now, atop a midnight roof in London, Sybbie understood why Monroe Stahr wanted to be near Sybbie so badly and why George didn't trust him ...</p><p>It was because, by some cosmic coincidence, Ms. Sybil Afton Branson was a near carbon copy of her favorite actress Minna Davis … Mr. Stahr's late wife.</p><p>"How are you, Ms. Branson?"</p><p>"I'm well, content even."</p><p>"It's good to hear that, really good."</p><p>Their conversation was haunted by the overbearing nature of the intimidating eyes of George Crawley who sharply watched the short conversation. Sybbie had a strange compassion in the way she had went out of her way to assure the man that she was well. She couldn't explain, but her love for Minna had somehow made her feel some semblance of entitlement to the well-being of the man who loved her. And he seemed touched by the heartfelt exchange of care in such familiar sad eyes. But their moment was interrupted by the look of ill that George gave the Commissioner.</p><p>"Mr. Stahr … I believe you wished to drop formalities in this matter of urgency." Sir Nayland Smith spoke up after a clear of his throat.</p><p>The man stepped away from Sybbie, though giving her a peripheral final glance, walking toward George who was stiff. There was a wordless exchange between the two. The beauty saw the unspoken accusations in one quick glance at the other. George did not trust Monroe Stahr, because, of Sybbie's likeness to Minna. That, she knew from the moment they greeted each other. But the girl wondered why Monroe did not like George. Certainly, it wasn't due to her.</p><p>Though, to be honest, much of the peerage's mislike of "The Comet" came from his guarding of Sybbie, keeping her at arms-length from them. They felt that he was 'hogging her for himself', that he had taken their beautiful and perfect 'girl-toy' and claimed her as his own. She sometimes pondered what people thought he did to her at night, or what they did together in his bed. If she told them of the wholesomeness, of the deepness of safety she felt in his arms, how he protected her from such terrible night terrors … she wondered if anyone would believe the truth of the loving chastity of their nights.</p><p>But something told Sybbie that this had nothing to do with her. In fact, though she was fairly new to the Consulting Detective business, she might say that Mr. Stahr might have said so much in the opening comment to her partner. That Minna was a big fan of George. That she was devoted to his stories of adventure, the way so many were devoted to herself. She wondered why Minna Davis was so invested in him, why George meant something special to her. Could it be that there was more to that story than what people knew, than Sybbie knew? Or perhaps it was a story that Minna's own husband wanted to get to the bottom of. Was it possible that Mr. Stahr had a few accusations of his own that he wanted to drop at George's feet concerning his late wife?</p><p>"You're right, Commissioner …" The movie producer nodded. "But, uh, I'm sure, with Captain Crawley's reputation as a Detective. Trained by the likes of Allan Quartermain, Mina Murray, "Zatara the Great", and you fine gentlemen. I'm gonna put money on his ability to deduce what this is about by simply picking up a newspaper." There was antagonism in his congenial manner as he pointed his hat at George who stood stiffly just in front of Sybbie.</p><p>"Sorry, pal …" George sighed mockingly. "Can't solve the industrial issues in Birmingham." He shrugged. "I'm good, but I'm no magician." He answered with his own antagonism in a grim but arrogant smirk half hidden in nightshade.</p><p>The movie man grinned darkly, knowing the score. "You gonna play coy all night?" He asked in unshakable humor.</p><p>"Nah, I just want to hear you say it." The slightly younger of the two countered sharply. There was a quiet pause as Monroe Stahr gritted his teeth and then sighed.</p><p>"Freya Ingrid, I hear you two have a …"</p><p>"No."</p><p>Suddenly George turned and began to walk away. Sybbie was surprised by the whiplash of the moment.</p><p>"Come on, Syb, we're leaving." George called without looking back.</p><p>The girl was caught off guard. "Why?!" She suddenly protested.</p><p>"Cause, I said no!" George replied dark and broodingly. "Now let's go." He said coldly, almost cold enough to make Lady Mary Crawley twitch an eyebrow with a thrill.</p><p>"But you didn't even hear him out!" She called after him.</p><p>"Don't need too."</p><p>"George …"</p><p>Sybbie spoke his name sternly and with entitlement. It was enough to stop his momentum. When he looked back, he saw a young and beautiful girl betray the quintessential textbook stereotype of what a spoiled heiress looked like. Her feet were planted, her pillow like ruby lips were pursed, and her arms were crossed over pearly silk dress and long draping velvet coat. It was not a tantrum, but it was the body language of a person who never took the word "no" very well. She did not need to tell him that she would not budge without at least an explanation of why they wouldn't help the romantically sympathetic Mr. Stahr.</p><p>She did not know entirely what was happening. But she knew that this had to do with Freya Ingrid, the woman that had beaten Sybbie for the lead role in the movie. She was not the girl's favorite actress. Comparing her to Minna was like comparing a gourmet English Breakfast, to being served … a pair of melons.</p><p>As far as Sybbie was concerned, between the pair of Pat Brady's Irish Actresses, one was everything you wished you could be on a movie screen, the other was a reminder of how someone gets on a movie screen. The girl was forcibly taken to a Freya Ingrid picture once. For the first half hour she thought that the projector had a flaw. Then, she realized that the projector wasn't skipping, Freya was just pausing a bunch, because, they had to edit around her line reading gaffs. Yet, just as she was contemplating suicide, the Dowager Duchess of Crowborough slipped her hand under Sybbie's skirt and into her satin knickers. It was then that the young woman would've been happier to see this abomination of cinema than being bought for a weekend to be explored by a cruel woman's dark journey into the so called 'ugly queer urges' of homosexuality to understand her son, the Duke of Crowborough.</p><p>Yet, perhaps her opinion was more informed by her experience in the theater, being forcibly fondled and masturbated in public to the sight of an actress in her underwear, while an angry and bitter hag whispered vile and terrible things in Sybbie's ear. The very memory misted her eyes and made her skin crawl, remembering the word "lesbian whore" and "degenerate" being whispered venomously while the dowager's cruel boney fingers brought the girl to an unwanted and painful climax. Ever afterward when Sybbie saw Freya Ingrid, she remembered that nightmarish weekend in the clutches of the Dowager Duchess. Hearing the Irish actress's voice triggered the memories of many 'experiments' done to Sybbie by the crone to see if Mirada Pelham had truly 'tainted' her as the Duchess believed her brother-in-law had tainted her son in childhood.</p><p>There were some nights in which she was still awoken by the nightmares of the things done. Then, she clutched to George, who held her tightly against him, as she wept in his chest. <em>"There's nothing wrong with me.</em>" She whispered through sobs, remembering cruel words and the shame of girlhood traumas. <em>"There's nothing wrong with me." </em>She would repeat, speaking against the darkness and quiet accusations of others, crueler judges, who believed things about the girl, because, of who and what was done to her long ago … the same thing that she allowed others to do later in life.</p><p>If it was just men, they'd call her a whore, like those jealous wives called her mama. But, because, she was also bought by women - a favorite treat and entertainment for older female house parties and wine tasting retreats - there were those that believed things about Sybbie. Fore, if she spent all her days and nights with George, and was not thoroughly ravished, then it meant that, perhaps, Sybbie was not interested in men.</p><p>And it was said that in her time as a luxury prize of a Nazi Saboteur's recruitment campaign through the British Peerage that some of the more affluent mature female high societal investors in the German war machine were deeply and romantically smitten by the beauty in their bed. Often in servant's halls, Mr. and Mrs. Bates were privy to stories of puppyish love letters written by their mistresses to the girl. These love loran letters of sweeping romantic interludes and explicit poetry were exclusively intercepted by the Downton household staff, headed by Thomas and the Bates's in order to shield Sybbie. Yet, the question of the girl's sexuality remained a mystery, even for the staff of Downton Abbey. Fore, not all of the letters were accounted for and not all of them went unanswered.</p><p>Yet, Mrs. Hughes, the old housekeeper, when posed the question by Anna - in some distress - proposed another theory long pondered on for sixteen years. A theory that was right in front of their face since two children in a nursery were little. Two children that in any other age of peerage would've been arranged to be wedded to one another to keep both estate and motor company in family. And it was thus that perhaps the idea of Sybbie pursuing meaningless rich 'playgirl' dalliances with both dashing collegian chaps and bored high society matrons was a stopgap. Instead, Mrs. Hughes proposed to Mr. Carson and Anna that Ms. Sybbie was biding her time for what she really wanted. And that was the requited love of the one person whom she worshiped since she was a small girl … one whom she was inseparable from since he returned to rescue her from evil clutches. To this, Anna Bates, seeing too much truth in Mrs. Hughes's words, despaired that it would've been a lot easier if her young mistress was gay. Gay they knew how to handle, the girl's budding addiction to sex could be treated, but this revelation …?</p><p>The Downton staff, Crawley family, and even aristocracy had always worried and misliked the odd, supernatural, connection between George and Sybbie … and the extreme ways the two had always responded to each other all their lives.</p><p>And it was on full display as she endured his white-hot look of anger, despite being daunted terribly by his eyes. Quickly the youth recovered ceded ground. For a moment, a real moment that had been played much when they were children, most people expected him to drag the beauty away by force as he had always done when she threw stubborn fits. But instead of manhandling the spoiled priss like he had always done, the youth halted and instead turned on the Commissioner.</p><p>"You got a lot of balls, Nayland, calling me up for this." He pointed an accusatory finger at the man.</p><p>"My dear Captain, you must understand …" He started seriously.</p><p>"No!" George snarled. Sybbie had not seen her best friend so terribly angry like this before. "I do your dirty work from time to time, solve the cases that are too complicated or dangerous for your regular Bobbie just trying to pay the rent and turn up alive for his Sally at the end of his shift. I do it for the working man and because I was trained to do it! But mostly, I do it, because, we're friends!" George ranted. "Now, I see that isn't worth <em>shit</em> compared to Pat Brady's money!" He accused Sir Nayland Smith angrily.</p><p>"I'm not asking for Pat Brady or Gilda O'Hara, chap." He tried to explain.</p><p>"A friend who was there in New York, who knows what happened to <em>Sensei</em>, wouldn't ask at all." George said with a near enraged look of betrayal. He turned to leave again. "Syb, we're going, <strong>now</strong>!" he barked.</p><p>"But she could die without your help!"</p><p>"Let her."</p><p>There were a lot of people who had opinions about George "The Comet" Crawley. Most of the time people wanted them confirmed by those who they assumed knew him best. People like Lady Pelham, Lady Grantham, and Ms. Sybbie. Everyone asked about the 'real' George Crawley. It seemed that most people found him rather terrifying. He had a fearsome reputation as a fighter and adventurer, pitted against the blackest of rogues which he fought on four continents. "Odolwunga 'Giver of Life'", a villainous African Black Sorcerer. "Dununga" 'The Man-Ape', an albino abomination of nature. Tatsu Suchong 'The Bird Spider', Court Magician to his master "The Devil Doctor" whose name is never said aloud. And the oldest of his foes, Professor James Moriarty, who was known when he dawned his cursed ancient mask as "The Necromancer". They each colored George's persona in public a shade darker as Aunt Edith chronicled their battles of the past. It was the opinion of many, shared privately by some in his own family, that one who fought and was exposed to such terrible villainy and evil could not help but be changed for the worse by it.</p><p>This sentiment had always angered Sybbie since George returned.</p><p>She had the privilege of seeing this man she loved so greatly in private, away from prying eyes. Yes, he was brooding, moody, and had a tongue like a razor. But he also was considerate, generous, and protective of those he loved … which was a larger accounting than their family gave him credit for. He had saved her from a hellish life, liberated their mama from a man who openly blackmailed her into vile things by using Sybbie's ruination, and he had not judged the girl he loved for the things that could've caused it. He gave her a sense of safety, a sense of dignity, and mended what was broken with love and understanding. Thus, when people often said that George Crawley was a frightening or cracked young fellow, Sybbie argued harder than anyone against such slanderous lies.</p><p>But in this moment, George, with a dark and gravelly tone of apathy, frightened her.</p><p>Thus, it was on principle, that this seemed a copiously cold execution by inaction that she would expect from their mama, not George. This was a man who had bent over backward for his tenants, who fought a war for the working people of the county's sake against their mother - even if she was the unwilling puppet of Nazi saboteurs. He did not turn his back on people who needed help, especially on someone who only he could. But much like Minna, and other such things, George seemed to have a history with Freya Ingrid, or Gilda O'Hara as Sybbie put together was her real name. Whatever it was, it was enough bad blood that even at the prospect of her death, Sybbie's personal 'Black Knight with a heart' would not save her.</p><p>It made her wonder. If after all the men and women who willingly paid to have her in their beds, people she still dreamt of in nightmares. The people whose faces, grimaced in pleasure, dripped sweat droplets upon her brow. People who she could still feel the pain of their hand spanking her as she was bent over someone's tea table at a party. They were people who had just attended fashion shows with her mama and Aunt Edith, yet Sybbie could still see their eyes staring at her from between her legs as they pleasured her against a Greek goddess statue at the center of a garden maze. Each of these people knew that it was wrong; what they did to her. They knew that she was not a willing participant in most transactions, and yet was enslaved to a vile man who would hurt her mama if she did not bend to him. Still they bought her, consumed her in their sinful lusts and needs.</p><p>It was then that she wondered if she would walk away, like George, if they were in danger and only Sybbie could save them.</p><p>Of course, George's history with Freya, however dark and hateful, was not in the same universe as Sybbie's history with so many. But she wondered if it was so terrible that the thought of this Gilda O'Hara's death was preferable than seeing her again after … whatever had happened? Could she really judge him when she had no idea if she'd offer a hand to Roger Sinclair if he was dangling from a cliff. She knew what George would do, if he hadn't already. She knew what Mama would do; after being so close to doing it when she found out what that man had done to Sybbie. She knew what Daddy, Donk, and Granny would do. But what would she – Sybbie - do if it came to it? Would she save a person she hated with all her soul?</p><p>"George … it's <em>Suchong</em>, he has the <em><strong>Emerald Dragon</strong></em>!"</p><p>Sybbie Branson was taken aback from her moral quandaries when the man that she loved stopped cold in his tracks.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>Editorial Note</strong>
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</p><p><em>The mystery of the Sybbie doppelgangers (Minna Davis, Mina Murray, Illona Tepes, and Lady Elfstone) and George's history with all of them is covered in-depth within the story </em> <strong>"Medhel An Gwyns"</strong> <em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>In which a young George and Martha Levinson – on her last visit to Downton Abbey- solve the mystery of "The Vanishing Princess". It also covers the first appearance of the dreaded "Necromancer", The legendary first duel in the bitter rivalry between Professor James Moriarty and George "The Comet" Crawley, the mythic founding of The House of Grantham, and the comedic first meeting of George and Martha in the Downton Library. That story is also the first and earliest prequel to this overarching Downton Abbey EU. Though it is not required reading for this story in particular.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Prologue: Conclusion - Part II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>NOW</strong>
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</p><p>The fog off the river front could be seen for hours, back building like a storm. And there it sat upon the dark waters of the Thames, obscuring the water traffic to a jumbled and invisible myriad of loud horns lost in the fallen grey clouds of the late afternoon. As the bells and whistles marked the end of another day done at the London Docklands, her workers walked away from their crates and machines looking back and watching the unmoving gloom that besieged the Capital by the very heart.</p><p>But in the dark of the night, as the wind shifted to the East and the night temperatures clashed, the dark obscurity slowly stalked through the brick and cobbled streets of the old industrial district. It swept over the rusted and delipidated buildings where it crowded deeply the empty streets. Each path, marked by the gravestones of an Industrial Age long past, was lit by the flickering lamp posts whose light was captured in a hazy mirage that bulbously shimmered like a faint illusion in a distant magic show.</p><p>The air smelt of salt, rust, and metal. The graveyard silence of the narrow street could only be broken by the loud smashing of something falling from a roof out of age and disrepair or a century old bottle breaking, followed by the hissing and cries of battling alley cats over a rat. The paths were straight, sensical, flanked on all sides by tall warehouses made of eroding brick, rusted aluminum, and brittle windows that glinted in the moonlight like a thousand eyes of an ancient fossil left behind by some great cataclysm. The noises of old machinery clinked and groaned in aging corrosion behind shuttered factory doors, while slit feline eyes of green and gold gleamed in the shimmering lamp light within the fog, blinking lazily in faint interest.</p><p>Half a century of grime, pollution, and neglect upon the old Victorian architecture were lit by a single passing headlight that cut through the fog.</p><p>It was a sleek and streamlined motorcycle that seemed unlike anything that anyone had yet seen. It came to a young woman in a daydream at a society tea. As Lady Morrow droned on, the young beauty caught the Marchioness of Hexham's interest by the strange schematics and formula's that she jotted down on a napkin beside her. Three nights in the Downton Library, and one presentation to her father at his office, and there could be found a team of confused mechanics at the main garage at "Branson and Talbot Motors". Ms. Sybil Afton Branson explained to her team just how they would build this new prototype motorcycle of the future. It took them a month, and two additional weeks of tweaking by Sybbie, before it was done. It might have been the sleekest and fastest thing that any man had ever seen. It was like something out of a Science Fiction Pulp, World's Fair pavilion, or "Flash Gordon", some said. But in the end, it seemed a frivolous venture. There was no practical application for the futuristic cycle, just a vanity project to show that Ms. Sybbie was a genius level engineer that was far ahead of her time. But even then, even with a great pride shown by the workers for this marvel of beautiful engineering, no one wanted to test it. Even Ms. Sybbie was forbidden by Mr. Branson and Lady Mary from taking it back to Downton with her, afraid she would want to try it herself. Thus, with great disappointment, the girl shuttered the imaginative and marvelous glimpse of a 'diesel punk' world of tomorrow.</p><p>Yet, plucked from that vault some months ago, pulling the tarp off of Ms. Sybbie's pride and joy, was one man. He took but a glimpse of the girl he loved's ideal future … and smirked. After some years of obscurity, nearly forgotten, there it was found by one young man with the courage to not only test the sleek motorcycle but, indeed, after several personal modifications, he made it his main vehicle of transportation ever afterward.</p><p>Now, that tall and athletic figure was crouched on the seat as he slowly cruised at a quarter speed through the narrow pathways of the industrial graveyard of the old city. His hardened and haunted cerulean eyes reflected the hazy gaslight behind the glass coverings of racing goggles. The motion of waded water vapor tussled perfectly waving raven curls and dampened the shoulders and turned up collar of the mahogany colored peacoat of beaten leather, half buttoned. Upon his tanned cheek bone was the bright glimmer of a fresh cut from a <em>Hollywood man's switchblade knife</em>. Turning his head left to right, he slowly observed his surroundings in anticipation as he continued forward.</p><p>All about him were the corpse like reminders of the once heart of England's power. In the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, here could be found the first boom of steel mills and factory work that replaced the agricultural and mining communities of old. From far and beyond, there came many a poor tenant, second son, and immigrant to these modern mechanized palaces of brick and steel. And with stacks of smoke billowing from great chimneys and mills hot enough to alleviate a man of his fear of Hell, the raw material from distant lands conquered were fashioned at six pence a day into a cornerstone of a revolution. For a near century, these places produced the very heart of the British Empire … industry. And each day, dusty, filthy, and bone tired, men wandered home to a row house with two rooms, filled with six children and a Sussex wife with one more on the way. Years of bone breaking work with no mobility and no salary rises began to bubble into discontent between workers and their industrial captains with their country estates and aristocratic wives. Yet, rather than slash their profit margin, rather than embrace the American capitalistic ideals of all men being created equal, these top hatted toffs came up with a different solution …</p><p>Distractions.</p><p>Past the tall remains of factories and empty warehouses, there was a narrow road that led to an opening. Between two massive brick walls, there lay the washed-out fliers and faded posters of upcoming entertainment that would make the rounds. A call to attention that the "Midway Circus" would be coming all the way from Chicago in America. There were deadly lions leaping through flaming hoops, teams of elephants balancing on one another, and of course, "The Black Ape". Captured by the mighty huntsmen Captain Allan Quartermain himself from Darkest Africa, and standing at twelve-foot-tall, it was the largest ape ever recorded by man - last of a pre-historic race. On the other side there was a poster, in oriental design, that showcased the great magician Chung Ling Soo and announced his daring attempt of his greatest trick yet, "The Bullet Catch". And not of least, still tacked, was a poster for a world changing event. The American Entrepreneur and inventor "Mr. Alexander Grayson" - with the attendance of his once beloved Ms. Mina Murray - would give the city of London a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a glimpse of the future with his newfangled electro-power machine.</p><p>All of these attractions, lined up, bombastic to the eye, were but a collection of an ancient city's faded memories of old tragedies. A dead magician, a sabotaged Electro machine that destroyed an entire city district along with a young female medical student's life. The piercing singular headlight of Sybbie's masterwork cut through the shimmering gloom, framing the suspended water droplets in motion like tears in rain. In the distance it passed over the half a century old advertisement for "The Cheerful Charlies" like a searchlight.</p><p>But at the end of the narrow-cobbled street, Mexican Federales motorcycle boots broke the bike to a halt at the end of a street between an old textile factory and warehouse with the faded name "Painswick" on each.</p><p>The young man sat up a little straighter and lifted the wetted goggle lens from his eyes to under his hairline. Before him, at the mouth of the narrow street, choked with old promotions, was an archway that led out to a large courtyard of cobblestone and brick. In the distance, he could hear the muttered sighs of the North Sea. But standing guard to this derelict entertainment district was a grim sight. For the archway in question was cut and shaped in the likeness of a circus clown's head, its gaping and yawning open mouth, frozen as if in some hearty cackle, was the entrance.</p><p>The young man noticed the wild eyes of red pupils. In another time, when Ladies Mary and Edith were young, one might have construed them as playful. But years of neglect and corrosion on the wood had made them seem sinister with malice. The deep red orange of the clown's hair was whitened and faded, leaving streaks that gave his character a sense of deeper age. Under his drooping red bulbous nose and washed out lips, were splintered teeth that framed the top entrance. They had been sharpened by long decades of exposure to the elements and resembled something likened to fangs. The rumble of distant thunder over the sea gave a flash of lightning whose shape was consumed by the fog.</p><p>Backlit by nature, the clown headed entrance was illuminated. Its principle features remained that of a grotesque and neglected asylum prisoner trapped within a dungeon that had been forgotten to time and care. Mold riddled and utterly without origin, there was a malicious and vindictive madness that rose from the infernal depths of its empty painted eyes. These grim attributes gave its adversary a pause, but for only a moment. The soft gust of the distant sea breeze whispered through the rotted factory machinery and the broken teeth, giving an earthly sounding wizened cackle that echoed hollowly all about the empty industrial graveyard of a bygone age. But as the rumble of thunder fell away in the distance, long brown leather gauntlets lowered goggles back over eyes and a boot lifted the break of his cycle.</p><p>The night stilled as the young man passed, undaunted, through the large clown's open befanged maw.</p><p>And now here, in this courtyard of stone, was all that remained of what once was known as "The Amusement Mile". A place filled to the brim with excitement, wonder, and no shortage of sin. A daily carnival, a year around amusement park, and other such attractions of mirth and amazement meant to blind the cares and inhabitations of a low-wage workman and his family. It was a never-ending symphony of laughter, organ grinder music, and hardy ale to chase away the grim specters of larger dreams abandoned. Enchanted, enraptured, and devoid of greater purpose, were they enslaved by the brighter lights and the ever-revolving variety of entertainment that moved in and out of the industrial district of a growing London Town. But always, when the sun went down, and a Tommy wanted to get closer to his Sally, you took her down to "The Amusement Mile".</p><p>And in the subsequent decades that followed, there came a larger sense of competition from entertainment acts and companies trying to get a regular spot in this fiefdom of smoke and narrow corridors. Every time they moved in, a theater group, a carnival company, or circus, they each tried to outdo one another, building and building, making grander the designs of the abodes that housed them. And there was never enough demand for a starved working class, addicted to the small wonders of vice in the inescapable doom of a path chosen at birth by a similar father and grandfather.</p><p>But, in the end, like so many things, it was at its greatest height that everything comes tumbling down. Mismanagement from envious and spoiled grandsons, social reform, and wars swept through the district. Birmingham, Liverpool, and Cardiff brought a cheaper tax and a less costly product. Fore, there was no greater weapon against an Englishman of the upper classes than that of the deceptive illusion of permanence. One by one, the factories and mills fell to foreclosure and bankruptcy. And when the customers were gone, turned out onto the London streets without homes or jobs, "The Amusement Mile" was not far behind them.</p><p>But the ghostly memories and phantasmal emotions of wonder had not of yet so completely abandoned the old places. For there was a moment in time, at its prime, when a young girl, hand in hand with a younger sister, followed her Aunt and Uncle. Lord Marmaduke Painswick had owned two of the factories in this district. And by the progressive crusading of his lovely aristocratic wife, most of these jobs had gone to female employees. Yet, the young girl following her aunt and uncle became privy to gossip from her mama and granny that some of them were quite pretty for common girls. And it seemed that such lofty suffrage goals had, indeed, turned on her aunt in spectacular fashion, especially with a husband who had such a wandering eye.</p><p>In a wide brimmed bonnet with blue silk ribbon that covered long glossy drop curls, the little girl in a sailor designed peacoat led her sister through the crowds. She rolled her red tinted amber eyes at the way Edith clutched so close to her, overwhelmed by the loud music, thunderous chaos of rides, and flashing lights all around them. She instead focused on her aunt and uncle, the way they walked, the way they talked. She wanted to know if it were true. If her uncle, who always gave her a wet kiss on the cheek and stuffed Edith with sweets, was truly a scoundrel. She wanted to know if their Aunt Rosamund knew. Little Lady Mary Crawley was not interested in this wondrous and mechanical wonderland. What she was interested in was the knowledge, the feeling of superiority of knowing … just knowing something. But her concentration was broken by some statuesque obstacle that she ran into. Startled, the girl slowly looked up at the figure standing in the middle of the brand-new amusement park's thoroughfare.</p><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w9H30hCHCI"> <em>("Toki No Shiro (The Castle of Time)" – Joe Hisaishi)</em> </a>
</p><p>He was tall, taller than any man she had ever met. And he was handsome, quite handsome, like a heroic knight from Camelot - brave and steadfast. He looked like her mama in his eyes and his grown-out curls of waving raven, but wholly in masculine. He was strangely dressed, with old looking denim trousers tucked into tall and supple black leather boots. His peacoat was of rich brown beaten leather, collar done up. But what she noted most about him was that his handsome face was grim and sad, in perpetual grief of some old sorrow he could not escape. And of this, for reasons unknown, it broke the little girl's heart.</p><p>He looked down at her and Edith, though her sister seemed distracted by some loud musical game involving bright lights. The young man, who so ably captured the young girl's heart so completely, found himself crouching down to her eye level. For a long moment the young girl stared at the thin gash on his cheek left by a final confrontation with Chris Everman atop the roof of Downton Abbey. Gently, caringly, she reached out to him, looking to give comfort to heal all the many wounds received in the slow bitter tracks of time. His eyes fluttered in anticipation of her soft and loving touch to which he hadn't felt in many long years.</p><p>"<em>Mary! Mary, Edith … come on or we'll miss the circus!"</em></p><p>The familiar voice of Lady Rosamund Painswick, musical in her golden years of youth, broke the moment between little girl and grim young man. Both girl and teenager looked up in an exact same motion, their matching brows twitching in unison, while their shared jaws tightened. Slowly, the little girl in fashionable bonnet began to walk away, removing her hand that was inches from the youth's cut cheek. For an old moment, watching her walk away, the young man felt a deep and familiar pain tug on his heart at the familiar sight, slowly drawing himself back to full height.</p><p>With a strict tug, which drew protest from her sister, little Lady Mary led Edith away to where Lady Rosamund stood with a pleasant smile next to a tall blond man with Roman nose and close-set grey eyes. The girls' aunt held her hand out for Edith to take. As the four figures walked amongst the crowds filing down a narrow path between the pavilions, he caught a glimpse of Little Lady Mary trailing behind her family. He watched as the girl paused. Then, she turned back to face the young man in the distance. Catching her glance, he was surprised to see a single, stray, stinging tear fall down her supple pale cheek. But before going, the girl blew him a heartfelt and deeply meaningful kiss of pure love …</p><p>The way she had always done when he had been her age.</p><p>But when he blinked hard, the music, the laughter, and bright lights fell away. And even as the ghosts of yesterday faded while they walked down the pathway, the deafening roar of silence was broken by the distant rumble of thunder. When he focused, the young man's true surroundings were shown in a flash of lightning. The ghostly echoes of long ago faded away, and of what remained seemed much of the same as others places among the many lonesome ruins of a decaying capital to a crumbling empire.</p><p>The heavy misting precipitation of the coming sea borne storm began to break the fog as the obscured lightning flashes uncovered a vast network of grimy and rotting pavilions. Once candy stripped in red and white, the many decades of abandonment had washed them to an indiscernible textile of drab muddy condition. Long and tall weeds broke through the lining of cobblestone tile to grow over and through the rotted horse drawn concession carts. The battling whirlwind of changing air pressure from the incoming storm made a warping and tattling crooning through the wiring that held together a tall Farris wheel covered in decades of mold and draped in old debris from the sea. With a grim set face, the young man placed his hand in his coat pocket and removed something from inside it. With a click, he observed the old ruins of rusted carnival and amusement rides caught in the illumination of the single beam of a chrome flashlight.</p><p>There was a visible snorted haze of breath that was exhaled from his nostrils before the slow scuffing claps of boot soles echoed dimly into this twisted and corroded forest of dilapidated Victorian wonders.</p><p>An old puddle of stagnate water collected in a broken cobble street pothole sloshed as a boot stepped through it. The sea storm breeze rippled the flaps of old pavilions and abrades machinery. In the distance the old guts of tinker amusements rattled and chimed. The force of the wind giving a phantasmal and slow tune from gear spun machinery. Their grinder organ tinkling offered an off-kilter rendition of a jovial folk song that echoed like a faint funeral dirge through the sea-soaked forest of foul-smelling booths. With every quiet step, alert cerulean eyes flickered left to right following the beam of the pristine light from his torch.</p><p>The blackened and broken shards of multi-colored festive displays glinted as he passed. Meanwhile, moldy and weather worn faces of big nosed and cartoonish characters of Edwardian popularity loomed from gaming booths, covered in mold and seaweed. The old and exposed wiring from their mechanical parts hung from their eye sockets and mouths like entrails. As the young avenger passed, a weak and whispered automation called to him in a tin canned poltergeist voice. But its old catchphrase, uttered like a crucified prisoner, was ignored.</p><p>The cringing warping noise of a rocking cart on a mini roller coaster quickly caught the attention of a light beam who flicked to follow its crippled pace forward. But after a long moment of tracking, its momentum stopped as the wind died down, halting with a faint squeal, before rolling backward in counter momentum on the inclined track of rusted iron and rotted wood tangled in weeds. Yet, with a grim narrowing of his eyes into a glare, slowly, he lifted his torch light up. On its journey through the scaffolding, covered in seaweed and vines that tangled in holes of missing roller coaster track, the light passed over a figure for only a moment. But when the light returned it held steady on the sight of a crucified body displayed on the scaffolding just under the apex of the ride's drop.</p><p>It was a man, balding, overweight, with a pug nose. He wore a Scotland Yard constable's uniform that was dampened by the elements and covered in dry blood. The corpse's eyes had been gouged out, his tongue removed, and blackened gashes and torn flesh of what looked like an animal mauling rotted corrosively by a venom that ate away the decomposing flesh on his corpse white jowls. He seemed to be a policeman, lower ranking, perhaps an Old Bill never ambitious enough to get a promotion. He must have thought he would get an easy pension in the evening tide of his career patrolling the old fairgrounds of his childhood. Too bad he didn't know what had moved in since.</p><p>"Right place."</p><p>The youth muttered darkly, unaware of the figure atop the Ferris Wheel whose six ruby spider eyes were momentarily illuminated by a flash of fog hazed lightning before it disappeared into darkness.</p><p>The trickle of drizzling droplets from the dark sky pattered on the heavy and mildew rank canvases. As if rushing for cover like a date night couple caught in the storm, the heavy fog rolled like a collapsing wave of surf into booths. Moldy wooden ducks were only visible by their muted yellow paint chips and red circle targets on their breasts from the shooting stand. The steady drizzle of the storm's prelude tinkled metallically on the bell atop the "High Striker" tower whose mocking and encouraging score scale was lost to time. As the precipitation increased the fog dissipated, clearing the visibility of the old amusement grounds. The tormented faces of rotted and desiccated stuffed animal prizes became clearer in the torch light as they hung limply from a tall pavilion that housed a rolling ball game overgrown by weeds and vines.</p><p>Through the labyrinth of booths filled with the once wonderous entertainment of Victorian London, the figure walked an even pace. His eyes and mind were clear. He knew where he was going, and what was waiting for him. The only thing in question was how far he would be allowed to get before they deemed far enough. Immediately – torch light flashing across animatronic faces and graphic mural advertisements on rotted wooden baseboards – he was aware that he was not alone. The most rigorous and intensive training in the African Serengeti and beyond by Allan Quartermain and the mightiest hunters of the Imakandi Tribe, at such a young age, had ingrained in him the instinctual and thoughtless intuition of knowing when he was being followed. Yet, he did not even glance over his shoulder at the dark and damp road of broken stone and washed out fabric behind him. Instead, he kept a steady pace as he came to the crossroads that led to his goal.</p><p>Beyond the forests of pavilions and wooden booths, surrounded by more unattended horse drawn carts of concessions, was a large carousel at the center of the amusement park. The torchlight trailed over the once gold and pearl crown jewel of the Amusement Mile. In his memory, he was reminded of the picture he had seen many times on Grantham House's drawing room mantle. In it was a pair of young women. There had been the beautiful Lady Cora Crawley, Viscountess of Downton, in white dress of silk and summer bonnet over perfect ringlets of raven curls. Next to her was Lady Rosamund Painswick in purple silks, her ginger colored hair pinned stylishly under a beret. Each splendid young woman was mounted side-saddle upon a crafted white steed impaled by gilded rod. They grinned for the camera as both women held tightly a pair of young girls straddled in front of them.</p><p>Lady Mary Crawley was a near carbon copy of Lady Cora in every way by dress and hair style. Her face was not overtly enthusiastic, but there was an undeniable pleasure to be mounted and held by her mama, the woman she idolized. In Lady Rosamund's grasp was the golden haired and eyed Lady Edith. She was opposite of her pristine older sister. She looked anxious, nervous, and uncomfortable. Her tiny Roman nosed elfin face forced a weak anxious smile on her mama's command as both her papa and the photographer caught their attention as they revolved past.</p><p>It had been many decades since then and it showed. The gilded edges were greening and flaking off. The white varnish was stained with weather and neglect. A black mold clung to the steeds that had born the fair ladies of old, their greening rods wrapped in snagging and twisting vines. It came to the attention of the young vigilante that the pervasive fair music that had been grinding out slowly at a ghoulish whisper had come from the carousel. Slowly, almost hauntingly lackadaisical, the old ride revolved at an off-angled lurch. The revolution pushed the rusted and weed crusted wheels which was connected to the music. With a soft and twisting noise of protest the horses pranced up and down in a disjointed motion, their eyes in torchlight were without pupil as they passed slowly into darkness.</p><p>For a long moment, the youth waited, watching the hypnotizing revolution. It was here that he expected to meet quite the welcoming committee. He had made it to the center of the Amusement Mile. Beyond the other side of pavilions was the show district. Theaters, Museums, and funhouses could be found there, actual buildings. And in particular was one in which the young man was interested in. A building that held a final showdown brewing for many years since New York.</p><p>Yet, the minutes passed without event and he found no sign of life visible. He glanced all about him slowly, but he sensed nothing in the air nor heard anything he did not already know about. He was being followed, they were close, but they were not who he was looking for. They were clumsy, loud, and utterly without attempt to conceal themselves. He could hear them a mile away, and that troubled him. He wondered how they could've gotten so far. He was fully under no illusion that "The Spider" would be waiting for him. His foe was sure the minute he took the Emerald Dragon that Nayland would turn to the youth. But to a third-party interloper, be it a Bobby scout, or a waif interested in what a man on a "Flash Gordon" motorcycle was doing in the industrial ruins during these witching hours - the Si-Fan wouldn't have let them get this far.</p><p>Something wasn't right.</p><p>With an audible click, the youth turned off his torch. He let the darkness wash over him like a baptism, the fog beaten down by the rain to the shins of his boots. He looked like he was walking atop clouds as he pushed forward, pocketing his flashlight. His feet clapped lightly on vine, weed, and broken stone as he walked a pathway that led away from the carousel toward more booths and pavilions. Rising above their canopied horizon were a collection of storied and unique looking buildings. But before he got there, he came across a ticket booth for the building attractions. Behind the two-lane station through the archway were two glass cases with a wooden pedestal in which tokens could be deposited.</p><p>"<em>Come, a fortune …"</em></p><p>A voice, deep and foreign, echoed softly with hollow reverberation at the young man. He halted his paces and turned to one of the cases that flanked the narrow path. The glass was covered in mist and neglect which obscured the vision inside. But past the green stains and shrouded visibility there came what looked like glowing red eyes watching him from inside. With hazy snorted breath and unblinking gaze, the youth walked over to the glass case display.</p><p>The unseen foreign voice claimed to know what was in the youth's head when he stood in front of it. Reaching into his inner coat pocket, he removed his long leather gauntlets and began to wipe away the decades of grime and the fog on the glass. There, inside, he found what had been staring at him. Decrepitly, it jerked a hand up as it once more claimed in mysterious voice to know how to read the young man's mind if he was brave enough to deposit a token. His eyes narrowed to a glare at the sight of an automated string puppet dressed in oriental robes and white silk turban. It had brown finish upon wood for skin color and was given a goat-tee of black wool upon its face.</p><p>A Turk.</p><p>
  <strong>CRISH!</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>KUMUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HICUHICHUHIC HAHAHAHAKHUKHUHAHA!</em>
</p><p>With a caught breath and prickled hair on the back of his neck, the youth whirled tightly when he sensed movement behind him. There was a flick of leather from his back hip as he drew out Matthew Crawley's retrofitted Webley revolver with a hand smooth and fast like lightning. His aim was with deadly sharpness as he held it on the looming figure. It pushed through a broken glass case and lurched through the hole within the shards it punched onto the broken stone path. It brought its head inches from the barrel so that the young man could see it in full.</p><p>The ambusher was a rotund woman with mop-like ginger hair and a foul-smelling Victorian School Marm outfit. She lurched forward with a hideous gargled belly laugh, her eyes a glowing yellow. Then, still laughing, she heaved backward, the noises of strained and old automation struggled to reel her in. But when she leaned forward again, toward the young avenger, the noise of snapping wires and bending machinery caused her to slump forward. With his sleek and redesigned weapon trained on the woman, he watched her fall out of her case, still connected to exposed wiring that sparked and snapped in the rain. Slowly, the consulting detective lowered his special, one of a kind, revolver. He watched the "Laffing Sal" animatronic writhe in tin and grotesque laughter on the pathway. Turning, he gave Jiro Sato's masterwork a tight gunfighter's spin - twice backward and once forward - right into its holster.</p><p>Old memories spared only a passing glare for the glowing red eyes of the Turk.</p><p>The drizzle was now considered a light rain as he passed the rest of the booths and pavilions. The prizes for the ring toss were riddled with mold, the table amongst a field of pungent weed flowers. The tent of caricatures was half demolished. Decades of storms and sea air had damaged the samples, making the drawn cartoonish faces upon canvas seem ghoulish and twisted in the nightshade. The Arcades filled with more personalized gaming machines were fogged by grime and mildew that stained glass. Some of the units had even fallen through the rotted planks of the floor. The top domes of glass had exposed the faded figures of Edwardian mascot characters' who peeked through the dusty and cobwebbed floorboards.</p><p>But the youth was not interested in these conditions. His eyes were drawn in every direction as he paced his way through the narrow stone path, hands in his coat pockets. He was now completely on edge as he drew closer and closer to the fight that he had spent years waiting for. But still there was no one, only a single presence, some minutes behind him. They had also stopped at the carousel. It was an odd thing, knowing that you were being watched, knowing that they anticipated you … but still they did not make a move.</p><p>It had been many years since he fought "The Devil Doctor" and his Celestial Order of Si-Fan. His last battle had been with the monster himself, a one-on-one duel by the boy's own challenge to avenge his sensei. The matter was in doubt and ended in confusion as both foes wounded one another. Blood was not satisfied and yet the old devil would not fight his young enemy any further. The greatest calamity to the West since James Moriarty… had simply vanished. He left New York and never returned. The youth would've hunted him if Sir Nayland Smith had not discouraged such a thing. He had done something that no other man had ever done. He had actually seen Fu Manchu personally, fought him in single combat, and survived - wounded him even. That was enough.</p><p>Yet, for the sin of wounding their master, the young avenger was sure that the Si-Fan would be as thick as fleas by now. He had made their God bleed and they would never forgive nor forget such a blasphemy. But as he continued on, the youth realized that there were no assassins, no foot soldiers, and no cultists. The Si-Fan was nowhere to be found. It had been this way since New York. This dangerous conclave of religious fanatics to one vision of a new world order, feared by the governments of man … fled from a single youth for the last five years. He knew "The Spider" was here ...</p><p>But where was the rest of his master's army?</p><p>These thoughts carried him to the very doorstep of his final destination. Here, the competition of theaters and funhouses were on full display. He came upon a wide street lined with lit lamps who framed the hardening rain that fell on a plethora of different buildings of varying architecture and design.</p><p>There was a Grecian Parthenon with chipped and cracking pillars where you could see the encore theater productions of the very best of the West End. Across from it was a tall and opulent Assyrian Mosque with doming roofs where inside one found an "Arabian Nights" themed Restaurant for the wealthier patrons. There were other such places of various sizes and attractions. A Georgian building who housed many natural science findings throughout the Imperium, much of which were most certainly made up. An Art Deco multiplex where you could watch a newfangled 'moving picture show' narrated by famed stage actors of days gone by and accompanied by accomplished piano players. There was a tall oriental temple which inside housed a hall of mirrors within a recreation of Peking streets where ghoulish cardboard caricatures of Boxers Rebels sprang out at you. Inside a Hindu Temple with three tall spires of white stone was an office building for many of the factory and mill owners.</p><p>In the years of plenty this had been a sprawling complex which celebrated the noontide of the British Empire. Each building represented some new monument to a provenance acquired. In its time there were crowds of people that walked here and there, marveling at a little taste of the world that no steel miller's son would ever dream of seeing. Money, saved up for months, was spent on just one of these attractions a year for the workers and their families. It gave them a taste of what the toffs and grandmothers would tell them 'wasn't for them'. To be here, even for pampered and luxuriated titled ladies like Mary and Edith Crawley was an eye opener. But it must have been something indescribable for young children who never went more than ten miles from where they were born in a Company Row House in the London slums. All of them, the Crawley Girls and the poor factory children, had all believed that this marvelous place would long endure after they were gone.</p><p>But now the cold air of the North Sea swept through this sepulchral graveyard of stone. Lines of fissures ran up and down the base of buildings surrounded by fields of flowers atop tall weeds. Vines and Ivy crawled up columns and swallowed entrances. Piles of shattered and powdered roofing lay on the stone steps to the Oriental Temple. Seagulls cried and circled the topmost spires of the Hindu Palace where they nested in the abandoned office space. Within the Georgian Science Museum was vaulted the skeletal remains of a "Prehistoric Sea Serpent" that was agleam with half a dozen slit pupils peering out from inside its eye sockets were alley cats perched in its plaster skull.</p><p>Ropes of Ivy wrapped like jungle serpents about the eroded stone statue of King Edward VII - "The Uncle of Europe" - that had been dedicated to him long ago. Now, the rotund playboy figure, son of Victoria and Albert, hated by all of his children, nieces, and nephews, had all his distinguishing features washed away. Once the talk of town as the Prince of Wales, considered the patriarchal voice to many European Monarchies in their twilight years, found himself in company with Ozymandias. His kingdom, his reign, presiding over his joyless and stern mama's Imperium, was but a reflection of what surrounded him. A Great War his pride and distain fostered in the rivalries that Queen Victoria festered in her grandsons, in the end, broke the empire which the sun could not set over. Now when they spoke of him, the old men guffawed, and the old hostesses recalled the tediousness of the man-child. But there was no greater distain for the man than from his own son, King George IV. His hatred of "Tum-Tum" was only rivaled by his own son Edward's disdain for the current dying King Emperor who loved his ward - Ms. Sybil Branson - more than he ever did his own children.</p><p>But they would all feel their blood boil to look upon the ruined statue and find 'him' leaning against it with such cool and mocking insolence.</p><p>It had been sometime that the young avenger stood under flickering streetlamp whose light was caught in the falling water droplets. He waited, observed, and studied the area about him. It was long since he had run headlong into danger anymore. There was a time for storming an area, rushing the guns. But Tatsu Suchong was not such an opponent. He would relish nothing more than to fight an overly aggressive foe. In fact, the young detective was sure that he was expecting it. The boy that he had fought multiple times in New York was headstrong, ruled by anger and aggression. Fu Manchu's Court Magician believed that he would not find anything different in this same opponent five years later.</p><p>But still, at the risk of over-thinking it, he still waited to see what might happen. He was being followed, and now, whoever it might be was back undercover at the arcade, waiting to see what he might do. They were full hardy if they had followed him all the way deep into enemy territory. There was no turning back from here, at the gates of the foe's stronghold.</p><p>But after a long time of no movement, no sign of life in the ruined plaza, the youth threw away caution to the storm drafts before him. But unlike before - making audible noise to draw out hidden enemies – when he stepped away from King Edward's statue his steps made no audible noises. It was as if he were wrapped in a cloak of enchantment weaved from an Elven Princess's own raven hair. Soft and swift as a shadow was his disappearance into the darkness, invisible to sight and hearing as he moved in and out of eyesight in timing with the flickered ancient streetlights across the cobbled plaza.</p><p>His destination was at the very end of the long cul-de-sac of pavilion buildings. Built at the edge of the beach of hard stone and grey sands at the mouth of the Thames was a tall Egyptian Pyramid. It had been the first building to have been built on the veranda all the way back in the 1840s. From then, it had hosted many acts and displays. Traveling exhibitions of rare artifacts, a long-hosted production of Julius Caesar, and even a circus in the early 70s and mid 90's. It was a sight to behold for many ships steaming into London Harbor to see the neat and uniformed golden stone and shining point of opal at its peak. But now no one seemed to notice it. The watermen were too familiar, and the riverfront was teeming with business that often blocked the view of the weathered monument. The only time that anyone seemed to hear about it was when a fool attempted to climb the building to break off a piece of opal, only to break his neck … never realizing the deception at the top.</p><p>But even in its abandoned state, its walkways strewn with decades of trash washed in from the Thames, it was still quite a sight, even if it was a much shorter and less ambitious knock off of the real pyramids. Leading up to the tall double doored entrance was a wide expanding staircase pocked with undergrowth. On either side of the wide stairs near the entrance were two black bodied Sphinxes with brass heads and wings. Though, after years of neglect, their feminine faces were terribly greened and withered as old crones. Their wings were drooped, their tips crumbling. But still, even in their forgotten perches, they were imposing and life like as they towered over a single shadowy figure that climbed the path between them. There was a gravity to their presence that feigned sentience, as if they might come alive and demand a challenge of riddle to one who wished to enter their abode. But they were silent as the young figure walked through the rain past them.</p><p>At the top of the wide stairs were columns carved out of the stone of the pyramid all across its width. It gave a long wind tunnel of columns and roofed shelter that housed a series of dilapidated and rotting benches for weary tourists waiting for the next show to start, or who just climbed the elongated stairs and needed a breather. Undercover from the rain the youth halted a moment, running his hand through his wet waving raven curls. He looked about him at the broken and caving benches against the stone walls. At his feet were old boxes of popcorn and sticks to candy apples eaten long before his birth</p><p>He halted when he was confronted by the imposing figures revealed in a flash of lightning that illuminated his surroundings. In a powerfully reverberating explosion of thunder through the columned wind tunnel he came face to face with the eleven-foot-tall guards of the doors. On each side was tall black jackals of Anubis. They had the strong and muscular bodies of men, and the elongated snouts, fangs, and eyes of the servants of the Ancient Egyptian God of Death. Atop their heads they wore blue and gold painted ceremonial headpieces that covered their canine ears. In each clawed hand was a scepter cane striped like their headpieces. Each was crossed atop their massive jade chests. They, alone, were untouched by age and condition. Both were unblemished and immortally fierce in their sentry at the doors with bared fangs and soulless eyes of death cultists.</p><p>They made no move nor said a word of acceptance or protest at the tall young man that approached. They towered over the youth that was only half their full height. He looked from left to right, studying each guard carefully. Then with a soft and soundless approach, he crouched at the very edge between both stone blocks they stood upon. He let out a long and purposeful breath that came out in a thick frothy haze. He watched the cloud linger and travel inches from the floor. But if there were any trip wire alarms or booby traps set for him, they were not at the entrance.</p><p>The youth stood to full height and again looked from one jackal to the next suspiciously, before he stepped forward to the double doors. In the days of the Amusement Mile at its height, the competitors - show folk at heart - still used sleight of hand to bedazzle the public. To many, they must have thought the great doors to the pyramid must have been made of pure gold. But the greened and warped entrance was shown to be nothing but very convincing and painted brass. A flash of close lightning revealed a notice from a York Bank that had the word "Foreclosure" written in big bold red letters still pinned to the doors. There was also rusting chains still wrapped about the corroding brass handles.</p><p>
  <strong>THWAMPH!</strong>
</p><p>The exploding brass doors crashed aside by the single sole of a boot that kicked them open. In a flash of violent lightning a tall silhouette stood at the entrance. He stared deep into the yawning and stale darkness that was disturbed by his action and the rolling boom of closing thunder. In the vast triangular structure, the hollow cascade of heavy and fat rain reverberated like the roaring of a waterfall within the cavernous halls. Hands returning to his coat pockets, the young vigilante walked steadfastly through the gilded doorway into the dark.</p><p>Yet, he was unaware of the twin eyes of the jackal guards of Anubis that began to glow red upon his entrance.</p><p>His footfalls upon linoleum echoed sharply through the abandoned triangle structure, rippling like a skipping stone through a creek bed. The noise of the pounding storm was dimmed on the stone structure. But the collected droplets through the many broken and aged sunroofs created a symphony of trickled dripping that put in stereo their loud repetition. The young man was aware of the stillness of the old pavilion despite the cornucopia of sound in the distance from the other levels. Across from the double doors was a dusty banister of stone that was lined with fake potted trees. Vaulted from the ceiling, just above the railing, was a banner with bombastic graphic lettering that proclaimed the last venue that had occupied the pyramid.</p><p>
  <strong>THE ALASTAIR BRUCE WAX MUSEUM</strong>
</p><p>Cerulean eyes glanced out from the gallery above, then below. He found that the venue was split into three levels. The topmost was office space for administration and dressing rooms for performers. The mid-level was the entrance, ticket booths, concession, and perhaps a small museum of Egyptian themed replicas that were more Hollywood accurate than historically. The bottom level was were the main attraction happened. Looking down he saw a vast linoleum open plaza that had an Egyptian hieroglyph of "The Eye of Horus" at its center.</p><p><em>Boom de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Boom </strong> </em> <em>de dum de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Boom</strong> </em></p><p>His eyes narrowed to a glare when he heard a rhythmic sonorous begin to faintly understate the pelting rain and the trickled deluge of dripping. It was dim, but steady, like the heartbeat of a determined foe. He glanced long and listened hard, isolating the sound of Shamanic drums that slithered across the dusty halls of the abandoned venue, echoing deep from somewhere in the cavernous darkness. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the charge, the bass of vibrations that disturbed the stale and dusty air with their ritualistic ceremony.</p><p>It was like the distant black summoning of all evil to Bald Mountain.</p><p>The rhythm of the soft echoing call was hypnotizing in its lulled range, and to many others it might have been soothing. But the youth was trained, not only in body, but in mind. And if he did not have protection from such things about him, he would still be able to sense it. The rotted core at the base of the pleasing melody. It was in the way the static friction began to rise a phantasmal crawling up the back of his neck. It was in the way that the rain spattered differently behind him upon exposure. And it was the soft and pleasant discord that was added to the music, like a spice that enhanced a dish for a few bites before its saturation over enriched the taste. Thus, was the nature and the pitfalls of the many petty magics of this age of man, as easily ensnaring, as detectable by the trained mind, though hard to resist … for perhaps lesser men.</p><p>But the youth and his many years of training and adventure was a breed apart, sensing and knowing the rot in the discord and evil subversion. But none the less he turned and began to follow the soft music, though not in thrall but in determination as the destroyer. Fore he unsnapped the flap over his Mexican holster as he continued on. He consulted many standing wooden signs propped on the floor that directed where the museum started.</p><p>Faces – dust covered and disfigured – were grimaced in ghoulish configuration in passing torch light while the young man walked through the painted backgrounds of "The City of the Dead" of Ancient Egypt. Their tall pillars with painted hieroglyphics were covered in black mold, the desert behind was chipped and weathered in age. In front of the backgrounds were silhouettes of lifelike beings that stood or sat in their own displays. Ramses II was upon his throne, brooding over Moses and God's ultimatum, glowering sightlessly at the tall youth with the Hebrew's coloring that passed him. Akhenaten, with his long face, stood in survey of his monuments and cities that he would never see finished. And the fair Cleopatra lounged sinfully for Caesar in white dress of Rome and gilded Egyptian jewelry. Of all of them she smelt most of filth and defilement by lunatic waifs.</p><p>Dust particles danced and rippled through the flashlight beam as the ominous life like faces faded to more displays. All around him, in dilapidated wooden sets and painted background, was a recreation of tombs. The walls were littered with wallpapered hieroglyphics whose color was faded and ripped, showing the wooden boards they were hung upon. Infront of the tomb backgrounds were realistic dummies in loin cloths and white ceremonial head pieces. With a high priest presiding with cane staff and opulent robes that were moth eaten, the group of wax figures were in the frozen process of mummification.</p><p>Three jackal headed jars sat at the edge of a tomb, one was knocked over, one sat at the very edge, and the last was still covered in cobwebs from being undisturbed for so many decades. This however caught the detective's eye. Slowly, the torch beam scanned the other jars whose dusty silhouettes were still imprinted where they stood in order atop the tomb. The beam traveled down and found two shattered jackal headed jars at the foot.</p><p>This led the youth to walk a few more paces following a trail of broken glass. There, a few feet from the mummification, was a figure lying on the floor. It was another wax dummy. But this one was lying in the middle of the pathway toward the exit. The torch light shown the figure in question was naked. For a moment it would not seem so out of place, fore if Cleopatra was any indicator, then some insane homeless beggars might have tried a few dummies in their squatting. But this was different, because, someone had taken the dummies clothing … recently. The youth turned his flashlight to the display that it came from and read the small plaque on the stand.</p><p>
  <strong>MEDJAY</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>(The Pharaoh's Personal Bodyguards)</strong>
</p><p>Just as the youth was ruminating on the possibility, he heard a noise. It was loud and echoing, drowning out the continuous Shamanic drumming. It clacked heavy and familiarly for a few languid and cautious steps. They were high heels. But the youth's heart stilled by what he swore was familiar footfalls before they stopped. Then, he heard nothing. The person who was following him since he entered the amusement mile had just entered the pyramid. Who that might be? He couldn't have guessed, especially if they were wearing high heels. But now it seemed, realizing her error, that she had removed her shoes, making her, for the first time that night, inaudible to the youth.</p><p>But the footfalls he did hear were dreaded fore unless they were his imaginings … he knew them.</p><p>He stood to full height, glancing at the area where he came from, before deciding to continue on before whoever it was - perhaps one of Nayland's WPC's - caught up with him and got in the way. But he lingered a moment longer, shining his light on the naked wax figure with a suspicious glare. But, none the less, he continued on.</p><p>After a few displays of sarcophagus replicas behind glass plating he reached the end of the exhibit. There was a small lobby that had a railed off gallery in which patrons might go through a door that housed a hallway staircase to the bottom floor or go by a pair of lifts that were flanked by public bathrooms. Looking back over his shoulder, the youth could sense that his tag-along was getting closer. Hearing a startled breath of surprise at a wax figure. And still, the drums got louder. Clicking off his flashlight, the youth strode forward and, loudly, opened the staircase door. But he did not go through.</p><p>Instead he paced over to the small square gallery that had a long pendent banner that advertised the wax museum. Mounting the banister, the young vigilante leapt and grappled the banner. Then, soundlessly, he slid down it till he dangled a few feet from the linoleum bottom. He landed with a muted clap of boot soles in a crouched position, hand anchored on the floor. With a smooth motion, he darted for cover and waited. There, in the dark, he saw the silhouette of a young woman peek over the railing down at a view of the right side of the bottom floor lobby. Her long glossy tresses dangled and framed a featureless face. There was no sound or movement but the dribbling water droplets, the heavy breathing of a frightened young woman, and drums in the darkness.</p><p><em>Boom de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Boom </strong> </em> <em>de dum de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Boom</strong> </em></p><p>The youth's heart was pierced momentarily by the stifled soft sob that she whimpered at the unnerving noises masked by a hollow stillness about them. He wished he could tell her in comfort to go back to the assembly area, to tell Nayland and Doc to get their heads out of their asses. Why they'd send a scout, much less a rookie WPC, alone into Indian Territory, baffled the mind. But he was satisfied that his deception worked. The young woman backed away from the railing and, noticing the open door, assumed wrongly that her mark had taken the hall stairs. It would lead her in the opposite direction, further from the danger that awaited.</p><p>The youth paced cautiously into the open area at the very center of the pyramid. Above were two triangular stone rails of the upper levels, one atop the other. While looking up at the very center, affixed at the point of the pyramid, he saw no sign of a top, nothing but a yawning black chasm. After a long moment of staring, the detective began to get a strange sense of vertigo. The abyss, impenetrable and endless, seemed a pit that lay above instead of below. If it wasn't for the fat dribbles of water falling from the darkness to puddle on the linoleum, he might have thought himself upside down over the void beyond the circles of the world.</p><p>At the ground floor, under the shade of the upper level platforms were three separate paths spread out around the plaza. Each was labeled by hanging signs. The one on the left corner was marked by the symbol of Amon Ra. To the right corner was the symbol of Isis. And the centered path directly opposite of the intruder was labeled by the marking of Horus. But the youth didn't need these labels to know where to go.</p><p><em>Boom de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Boom </strong> </em> <em>de dum de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Doom </strong> </em> <em>de dum</em> <em> <strong> Boom</strong> </em></p><p>From the right there came the steady beating of a drum that came louder and more pronounced. At the center of the "Eye of Horus" the sound of the rhythmic noises was caught in the hallow empty halls and overpowered all earthly noise like a tidal wave caught in a black cyclone. But now it was accompanied by a deep tribalistic droning that mixed with the beat. The deep and religious voice's bass trembled the air with foul discord that twisted and knotted the insides of all who heard it as it consumed the darkness.</p><p>This was not the first time that the youth had heard this ritual. It was the same beating drum and shaman like humming that had helped his sensei and himself track "The Spider" the first time through the ancient sewers of New York. But this time there was a difference to the situation. It was the same holy artifact, the same hostage, and the same foe who had taken both the first time. But in this final encounter Tatsu Suchong knew that the youth was coming. This ritual black magic ceremony carried more than one meaning.</p><p>The youth's bold entrance had aroused and kindled the dark magician's wroth and this was the acceptance of his old foe's challenge.</p><p>There was a slight ache to the young man's ears and a buzzing in his head as he approached Isis's hall. It was a perversion that only a trained mind could sense - one in tune with their own environment, with the vibrant ether all around him. There was a sudden relief that he had misled the WPC that had followed him. Fore, he did not need to see what was behind the door to know the evil that was being conjured in this abandoned place. It wasn't just about the Emerald, trying to corrupt it, but also the calculated response to cripple his young enemy's reflexes. He had flooded the ether with grim and dark viscus to congest his trained six sense that was invaluable in a fight like this.</p><p>For the untrained, the noises, satisfying and comforting, might have filled them with a small thrill of completion. As one who hears the satisfying snap of a last piece being filled in a puzzle or aesthetic project. It would attract them in thrall, the hum of a plucked web of a spider drawing in his prey. But for the trained mind, the rhythmic drums and droning were the equivalent of choking the field with dust and ash before battle. The young man was unfocused, his senses pulsing through a blinding obscurity as he pushed through the door gaining closer and closer to the source of such painful evil.</p><p>The noise was now near deafening as he slipped into a long exhibit room. There was wall to wall displays of forests and ancient palaces. They were mockups of Constantinople during the Crusading Era. Many painted pavilions, chipped and sanded by age, the shown a Medieval Jousting field. The opulence of Versailles in replica was riddled with cobweb and mold. And the recreation of Buckingham Palace's throne room was ransacked. The red and golden mantels lay by the broken gilded seats of the King and Queen, while the joint Hanoverian and Winsor Royal Crest had two large gashes across it as if defiled in hatred by something with massive talon claws. The youth gave a moment to add to the destruction in parting by spitting upon the fallen Winsor's Royal Emblem.</p><p>But still, he paused, when he turned and observed everything in retrospective. The buzzing in his head and ache in his left ear was making it hard to concentrate. He might have felt blind and deaf … but he wasn't stupid yet. The scenery, the replicas, the painted backgrounds in each display was there. But there was something missing: Where was the wax figures? What was this place supposed to be? Like a lighthouse, the torch beam slowly surveyed each flank of the linoleum walkway. But it's searching was, for the moment, a fruitless endeavor. The young man found himself suddenly on edge as he turned and continued forward.</p><p>In the next part of the room, he paused. The narrow path opened up into a strangely airy room that was bereft of any displays. It seemed that there might have been some exhibit here, once. Now all that was left was a collection of pedestals in the shape of Grecian columns. They lined the pathway to the end of the hall were two red double doors with golden oriental design stood. From below, through the cracks underneath, there was an emerald light the gleamed strongly from inside the room. But his nerves were muddled by the pounding and droning nightmare of building and escalating noise that sonorously rippled aggressively. He was driven by a desperate desire to charge the room and kill every man who beat on the drums and disembowel the choir of chanters. But he maintained just enough control to realize that there was more to contend with then noise.</p><p>Above, upon the ceiling was a brittle and weather damaged sunroof in a long triangle shape that stretched near the length of the center of the room. As the sea storm ravaged the ruins outside, it's sheets of rain battered the old glass windowpanes. It was here, among the shamanic rhythmic noises of evil ceremony, that drippled droplets of rain run off splattered on the floor in leaky repetition. And as a flash of lightning forked above the window, an explosion of noon time light revealed that the Grecian columns were not all empty.</p><p>Drawing forth his flashlight, the youth clicked it on to spot a collection of four out of place wax figures near the red oriental doors. Fearlessly, the youth pressed forward, shinning his torch beam on each as he passed. The first was a frozen and expressionless figure, short and stout, he had a black goat-tee and his eyes were hidden by a brown helmet. The replica of a solder in Qin Shi Huang's Terracotta Army did not react to the trailing beam of light that crossed his face, continuing to stand at perfect attention. At an angle from across it, on the other side of a path, was another dummy.</p><p>The metallic tinkle of dripping runoff from the sunroof echoed hollowly off the helmet of a Samurai from Japan's Feudal Era. It was clad in square and rectangular armor, a short-bladed Katana was angled by its wielder as if it was parrying a blow. The light of the torch lingered on the demonic mask, fanged and fierce that covered the warrior's face.</p><p>But he moved on to another strategic placing were a Maori Warrior stood sentry. But the young man frowned at this one. The warrior in question was properly dressed and looked accurate to those he had met in his childhood. He had a loincloth connected to a studded leather belt. His vest of palm eaves was the right length. The figures war and tribal tattoos were painted on correctly, and even the ceremonial clubbed weapon he held at his side seemed authentic. But the man, the wax figure, was not. They were clearly a white man, Scottish even, by nose bridge and brow. Yet, the figure did not blink or move under scrutiny.</p><p>"No wonder they went out of business."</p><p>The last and closest to the door was the one figure that made him pause. In a black and gold ceremonial head piece, the figure wore a harness of black leather over a big and bare barrel chest. Black streaks of face paint went down from cheek bone to jaw on both sides of his face. His loincloth was gilded and striped silk. In his big hands was a long Khopesh blade of bronze. The big and imposing wax figure of a black man was dressed as one of the faithful bodyguards of the Pharaohs, the Medjay. Of all the others, the youth studied this one the hardest. He had seen the naked wax figure in the middle of the Ancient Egyptian display. Yet, this larger figure was also made of wax, his ebony skin glossy and slippery in the dim light from the storm above and the flashlight. But the question of why plagued him. Why did "The Spider" strip one dummy to dress another? It bothered him, and he might have looked a bit harder had the fog of evil not beset him with unbearable torments. Thus, he released the Medjay from his scrutiny and walked forward toward the double doors.</p><p>But just in that moment the drumming and the droning … suddenly halted.</p><p>For the first few beats, the youth did not notice. Fore, after a while, one doesn't really hear repetition till after it stops. But when he did notice its halting, he was overwhelmed with the whirlwind of bombastic explosions of deafening silence. His mind reeled, and the true languishes of his senses were given room to torment him, as the aches of being suddenly released from a crushing vice grip. He scrunched his eyes shut and groaned, placing his hand on his forehead. But at the apex of his stumbled state a vibration against his breast caught his attention.</p><p>Immediately, just a few paces from the oriental doors, the youth reached into his Navy colored long sleeve Henley shirt underneath his white button down. It was then that he pulled out the talisman that had been about his neck every day for nine years. Taken from the skeleton of the last ruling queen of a fallen island continent of the ancient Men of the West from her sunken throne. Gifted to him by an angelic elven creature, of whose blood ran through his veins, of whose likeness a young woman he loved was the reincarnation. Of what this Talisman's original form had been does not come into this tale. But when it was given with love of an ancient ancestor to her descendent, as if he were her own son, it took the form of the comfort of his own mind.</p><p>Thus, surviving many adventure and danger for near a decade, the youth withdrew from his shirt a silver fob watch on a matching chain. Upon its cover were three concentric circles that had lines through them and four smaller circles at each axis point. In this fine craftsmanship of etching was the symbol of the "Master's Wheel", an obscure discipline of swordsmanship practiced and mastered by a driven young warrior. But now each circle and line on the cover of the silver time piece was glowing a bright blue that reflected on his face. In his palm the talisman pulsated. His eyes then went from a frown to a glare as he slowly looked up. It was a maternal protection against evil ritual from a higher power of the ancient world …</p><p>And a warning that such evil was near.</p><p>With a click to turn his flashlight back on, the young man turned it to a sign that was hanging off one of the walls. He tilted his head as he read it grimly.</p><p>
  <strong>THE QUEENS OF EUROPE AND ANCIENT GREECE</strong>
</p><p>Pocketing his flashlight, the young detective turned back in a strobe of lightning, there he found the wax figures of Terracotta Soldier, Samurai, Maori, and Medjay were gone from their pedestals.</p><p>
  <strong>ROOOHHHMMMM!</strong>
</p><p>In another flash of violent lightning the youth clenched his fists when he found himself suddenly surrounded by armed wax figures that slowly began to close in on all sides.</p><p>
  <strong>ROOOOHHHHHMMM!</strong>
</p><p>Four forks of lightning streaked across an embattled storm cloud framed in the sunroof that looked down on the large Medjay that was lifting his curved bronze sword above his head to strike the youth from behind.</p><p>
  <strong>ROOOOHHHMMMPHHH!</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>CLANCSHCK!</em>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span class="u">
    <strong>TO BE CONCLUDED!</strong>
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